Consider the following statements:
- 1.Lions do not have a particular breeding season.
- 2.Unlike most other big cats, cheetahs do not roar.
- 3.Unlike male lions, male leopards do not proclaim their territory by scent marking.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (a) 1 and 2 only
Lions mate at any time of the year, and cheetahs, which are not in the roaring genus Panthera, chirp, purr and growl instead of roaring. Statement 3 fails because male leopards do scent-mark: they hold their territories through boundary scent-marking.
- ✓ 1. Lions have no fixed breeding season. Females give birth about every 20 months if they raise their cubs, and sooner if they lose them, so lions can breed at any time of year.
- ✓ 2. The lion and tiger belong to the roaring genus Panthera (NCERT); the cheetah is the only living species of a separate genus, Acinonyx, and does not roar. It purrs, barks, growls, hisses and chirps.
- ✗ 3. Male leopards maintain their territories through a boundary scent-marking strategy, so they do proclaim territory by scent.
Remember · Roaring cats = genus Panthera (lion, tiger and kin); the cheetah (genus Acinonyx) purrs and chirps, and cannot roar. Lions breed year-round. Male leopards, like lions, scent-mark their territory.
📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 9 Exploration, Ch 12 (practise this chapter)
Sources
- Convention on Migratory Species (CMS, UN), Proposal on Panthera leo: lion biology ↗ “Lions have no fixed breeding season. Females give birth every 20 months if they raise their cubs to maturity, but the interval can be as few as 4-6 weeks if they lose their cubs.”
- Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute: Cheetah ↗ · reference work “Cheetahs do not roar, but they make sounds including purrs, barks, growls, hisses and chirps that are unlike those of any other cat.”
- NCERT Class 9 · Exploration, Chapter 12 “Panthera tigris (tiger) and Panthera leo (lion) under the genus Panthera — the roaring cats (possessing the ability to roar), have similar skull structure”
- Verschueren et al., Animal Behaviour 200 (2023) 115-124: Social organization of a solitary carnivore, the leopard, inferred from behavioural interactions at marking sites (peer-reviewed; author copy) ↗ · reference work “Male leopards maintain territories through a boundary scent-marking strategy”
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2024, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). ·