Hilarious moment: Mother lioness finishes with her annoying cub and pushes him into a stream
This is the hilarious moment a lioness pushes her pesky cub backwards into the river.
Cute footage shows the five-month-old cub busily playing with his mother, who occasionally pushed him away to keep him at a distance.
Clearly irritated by the young lion’s games, the matriarch eventually pushed her cub backwards over the ridge while his back was turned.
In a moment of comic perfection, the youngster managed to spin around on his backside with a look of disbelief at the betrayal, before falling over and disappearing into the water below.
The moment was perfectly captured by South African safari guide Kagiso Magano as he toured Madikwe Game Reserve.
This is the hilarious moment a lioness pushed her pesky cub backwards into the river, captured by safari guide Kagiso Magano at Madikwe Game Reserve in February
In a moment of comic perfection, the youngster managed to roll around on his backside with a look of disbelief at the betrayal after being pushed
Kagiso said: ‘I’ve been a guide for fifteen years and I’ve never seen anything like it, it was just so funny’
The contented lioness watched as her cub disappeared from view into the ridge below
Kagiso saw the big cat family enjoying themselves together on February 23, but one cub was particularly playful.
Kagiso, from Rockfig Madikwe Lodge, said: “I’ve been guiding for 15 years and I’ve never seen anything like it, it was just so funny.
‘This youngster is the only one in the nest and is extremely playful. Apparently Mom found him annoying this day while she was trying to rest and decided to teach him a lesson.
“They are part of the Mica Jamala Pride, which is based in the south of the reserve.”
Madikwe Game Reserve is home to a small proportion of South Africa’s estimated 3,284 lions – according to the World Population Review in 2024 – across its 750 square kilometer area in the north of the country.
At five months, the cheeky cub above is still in the early stages of its life, although small lions begin to participate in killing as early as eleven months old.
However, they cannot survive until they are about two years old and enter adolescence.
Since this young cub is a male, he will likely be expelled from his pride at the age of three and become a nomad, until he is old and strong enough to take over another pride as their leading figure.
Wild lions rarely live longer than 10 years, although they can survive more than 25 years in captivity.
Despite their infamous power, lion numbers are actually declining and are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).