In the animal kingdom, it’s often assumed that males, with all their size and flamboyance, are the ones in charge. But reality paints a different picture. Delve deeper, and you’ll uncover extraordinary tales of female leadership and prowess across various species. From strategic hunters to nurturing matriarchs, females defy stereotypes, carving out powerful roles within their societies. Join us as we explore the often overlooked contributions of nature’s unsung heroines!

Lionesses

Move over king, there is a queen of the jungle (or er, savannah) now in power! Despite what The Lion King would have us believe, it’s the lionesses who reign supreme, governing their prides with strength and strategy. They raise the cubs and lead the hunts, working together to secure food for the group. Matriarchs, often the oldest and most experienced lionesses, make crucial decisions regarding territory and protection. Their unity and cooperation ensure the pride’s survival, fostering a tightly knit social structure where each member plays a vital role. In this ‘matrilineal’ society, males play a transient role, mainly focused on territorial defence and teaching male cubs survival skills before they ultimately leave the pride.

Lionesses tend to stay within their mother’s pride, or go on to make new prides with their sisters. This is a testament to their strong familial bonds, which benefits them when raising cubs. Lionesses with cubs of a similar age will nurse each others offspring in creche’s. A female that raises her cubs in collaboration with her sisters is better equipped to stop marauding males from killing her cubs, if the dominant male of the pride is not present.

 

There’s a good reason why lionesses are the namesake for the English women’s football team. In their pursuit of prey, they demonstrate a strong spirit of unity and teamwork, capable of taking down large megafauna that would be impossible to kill individually. The lionesses of the Savuti pride in Chobe National Park, Botswana, have even been seen to take down elephants! The key to the lionesses’ success is once again collaboration. Lionesses will carefully position themselves around the weakest or youngest members of the herd, separate them out and then chase them together. By picking out one animal and working as a group, they ensure that they all can focus their energy on the easiest option and avoid injury. Their group efforts overpower the prey, providing enough food for the dominant lions, cubs and themselves.

Bees

In bee societies, the queen is the matriarch of the colony, holding ultimate authority. She dictates reproductive cycles and hive dynamics. Under her guidance, the hive thrives, with each bee fulfilling its specialized role. Every worker is a female, tirelessly labouring to collect nectar and pollen, construct intricate honeycombs, and care for the queen and her offspring. Through co-operation and communication, female bees ensure the cohesion and prosperity of their society. Males, on the other hand, do not contribute to the hive’s functionality. Their sole job is to fly off and reproduce with other young queens who will start a new colony.

Elephants

 

Elephant societies are led by a matriarch, typically the oldest and most experienced female, who steers the herd with wisdom and resilience. Matriarchs possess an extensive knowledge of the herd’s territory, migration routes, and available resources, crucial for their survival in challenging environments. They lead their families to water sources and grazing grounds, making critical decisions that impact the entire herd’s well-being. Matriarchs also play a vital role in social cohesion, mediating conflicts, and maintaining harmony within the group.

While male elephants may briefly join the herd during mating seasons, it’s the matriarchs who maintain long-term stability and continuity. Through their leadership, female elephants exemplify strength, empathy, and adaptability, demonstrating the profound impact of female rule in the intricate dynamics of elephant society.

Orcas

In Orca societies, females occupy the central leadership roles, wielding significant influence over pod dynamics. Matriarchs possess crucial knowledge, accumulated over decades of experience, that can mean life or death for their kin. They share their knowledge of the best hunting spots and more than half the fish they catch with family members. Their leadership ensures the cohesion and survival of the entire group. Moreover, orca societies exhibit strong matrilineal bonds, with offspring remaining closely associated with their mothers throughout their lives.

Female orcas help their offspring navigate the complexities of social life and protect them from fights with other killer whales. They pass down cultural traditions, hunting techniques, and social behaviours to successive generations, perpetuating a rich and dynamic heritage within the pod. While male orcas may occasionally challenge the matriarch’s authority, it is ultimately the females who maintain stability and harmony within the group.

Clownfish

Did you know that in Finding Nemo, the main character’s father would have actually become his mother? Yes, as strange as it sounds, if the plotline had played out in real life, Marlin would have undergone a process known as sequential hermaphroditism, which would have changed his sex from male to female. In clownfish society, females are the largest of the group and the most dominant. They eat the most food and spend their time defending the anemones they live in. If two male clownfish are put in a tank together, they will fight and the one that wins becomes female!

If the dominant female of a group dies, her mate (the second largest fish in the group) will change sex to fill her place. One of the lower ranking non-breeding males in the family will then become the male partner to this newly made female! The role of males and females in clownfish society is a reversal of the roles in lion prides. When clownfish spawn, the male guards the eggs on a flat surface beside the anemone for six to ten days, whilst the female will resume her role of protecting the anemone from predators. Interestingly, the brain of the clownfish is the first thing to change when an individual undergoes sequential hermaphoroditism and the actual physical sex of the fish may not change until months or even years after. Despite this, other fish will still treat the individual as if they are physically a female, with males avoiding conflict with them and other females actively fighting them.

Naked mole rats

You may have heard of the Queen Bee or even the Rat King, but have you ever heard of the Queen naked mole rat? This species is the only mammal to behave like social insects, with a hierarchy that determines an individual’s role within a colony. The rats live in extensive tunnel systems underneath the savannahs of East Africa, surviving on roots and tubers. Ninety-nine percent of a Naked mole rat colony will never reproduce. The job of reproduction is the role of a single female, who bullies the rest of the colony into submission by shoving them relentlessly as she walks past. This stresses the workers out, which causes them to remain in a pre-pubescent state. Workers are made up of both males and females, all incapable of breeding due to not having fully formed genitalia.

Only three males chosen by the queen will have the ability to mate with her, producing enough offspring to maintain a colony of seventy to over two-hundred individuals. When the queen dies, a few females will fight to the death for her place, the winner changing physiologically to become longer and larger. This morphological change allows her to become pregnant without getting stuck in the narrow tunnels that make up the homes of this unusual species.

Whilst the lioness is more readily seen, perhaps the queen of the savannah actually lurks underground?

Hyenas

If you think that shoving your workers around sounds aggressive, wait until you hear about the tyrannical reign of the dominant female hyena!

Hyenas have a social hierarchy that places the females of the group way above the males. The key to the alpha female’s dominance is in her physiology. A female hyena is much larger than a male and also has genitalia that resembles a penis and scrotum. A female hyena’s body produces testosterone during pregnancy, ensuring that her female offspring will be born with her same domineering traits and size. The larger and more aggressive the female, the more testosterone her unborn pups will be exposed to.

The reason for this aggression is due to the feeding style of a hyena clan, where up to eighty individuals may be fighting over one carcass. A more aggressive female can ensure that her small cubs get a chance to feed amongst the chaos. The unusual genitalia of the females may also ensure that she has more choice over who she breeds with. The pseudo-penis made from her elongated clitoris makes copulation difficult, and so it requires her full cooperation. This organ is also used to urinate, so if she decides she no longer wants to have the cubs of the male she has mated with, she can ensure that his sperm does not reach the eggs in her reproductive system.

Unfortunately, this adaptation does have its drawbacks. 10% of first mothers die during birth and 60% of cubs are born dead due to suffocation in the long birth canal. The alpha female hyena’s reign may be violent, but it also may be short.

Topi antelope

We have all seen images of male deer and antelopes, using their impressive horns to fight one another for the rights to mate with a harem of females. But did you know that for the Topi antelope, that role is reversed?

Topi antelope females are only receptive to mating for one day out of a whole year. As a result, during this 24-hour period, they mate a lot. Females have been shown to mate with up to four different males in one day. Their desire to mate is so strong that the male Topi antelopes get tired and reject females they have already mated with. This leads to a lot of competition between the females, who fight for the attention of the most desirable males, who they may only get the chance to mate with once. Females have even been seen to attack the males themselves if they are with another female, just to monopolise their time.

The more they mate, the pickier the males get and begin to fight off any female that they have already copulated with. Once the day is over, the female no longer desires them and will go on to give birth to the calf of one of the four males she has mated with.

Phalaropes

Similar to the Topi antelope, it is the female Phalarope’s job to woo the males of her species. Phalarope females are much more brightly coloured than the males, the reverse of most forms of sexual dimorphism in birds! The female courts the male by swimming around him, to get him to follow her. Once they have mated and the female has laid a clutch of eggs, she will fight off any rival females until the male has begun incubation. After he has started this task, she abandons him to search for a new mate and to lay a new clutch. This form of sexual behaviour is known as polyandry.