Lions are considered “King of the jungle”. That’s because the elephant can’t be troubled. Elephants know who’s really king of the jungle and it isn’t the lion. Lions will only attack a very young, very old or very lame elephant. Sometimes, as amusement, a strong, young bull will lag behind the herd. He’ll fall a time or two and limp. A lion, seeing this, will go get the rest of the pride. They’ll sneak up on this lame elephant.

The “lame” elephant sees them coming. He then makes his limp even more pronounced. The pride of lions attacks! The “lame” elephant waits until a couple of the lions are on his back and then he falls down and rolls over. The rest of the pride lose their pride and run away. The elephant gets up and lets out a victory cry.

The lion has his own trick. He plays possum. Soon enough, a bunch of hyenas come trooping along, sees the dead lion and think, “dinner”. However, through the eons, the hyenas have been tricked by so-called dead lions. They warily wander around at a safe distance. First they look for blood. If they don’t see blood, they look for spoor. An animal dying a natural death will usually let go of his bowels. That doesn’t bother a scavenger like the hyena.

The lion wanting to trick a hyena will eat a bunch of grubs to get the runs. Then he lays on his back with all four paws in the air. When the hyenas are satisfied the lion is dead and jump on him the lion swings his paws. The lion won’t eat the dead hyenas. Too much pride. The joke’s the thing.

Monkeys have a huge number of tricks. One of them is to tie the tails of sleeping monkeys together and yell, “LION!!”. It’s not true that some monkeys are born without tails. It is true that some monkeys die without tails.

Monkeys and elephants get along very well. Monkeys will ride the elephants for the thrill and to tease the lions. The lions, who don’t like the taste of monkey meat, will kill a monkey on sight. It’s a reflex.

Monkeys will sit in a tree and throw fruit at the lions. The lion is a carnivore so the fruit is wasted. It does make the lion angry and frustrated. He can’t get up to the monkeys. Sometimes a monkey will nail an elephant with some rotted fruit and then point to the lions.

Then, all hell breaks loose.