What did the original Lion King movie get wrong about life on the savannah?

By Petria Ladgrove, Ann Jones and Belinda Smith for ABC Radio's What the Duck?!

For many millennials, the 1994 Disney coming-of-age classic The Lion King formed an integral part of our childhood.

We gasped as the king of the Pride Lands, Mufasa, tragically died, trampled under the hooves of stampeding wildebeest.

We wept as his heartbroken son and heir Simba left his home range, then cheered as he dethroned his villainous uncle Scar and took his rightful place as king.

The movie was also a massive box office hit. It was the highest-grossing animated film of the 1990s, with its opening weekend drawing 10 million people in the United States alone.

But while the iconic movie (and its equally iconic soundtrack) have a special place in many hearts, how accurate is it when it comes to actual lion behaviour?

We asked an expert to sort fact from fiction.

Simba wouldn't end up with Nala

Spoiler alert: Simba's happily-ever-after story involves him falling in love with Nala, a young lioness from his pride.

Elton John and Tim Rice's 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight?' is the soundtrack to the realisation of their feelings for each other, and the movie ends with a new cub to complete the circle of life and carry on Simba's legacy.

But the Simba/Nala relationship just wouldn't happen, according to Neil Jordan, a zoologist at the University of New South Wales and Taronga Conservation Society, and a researcher with Botswana Predator Conservation.

"As it is portrayed in the movie, there is quite a lot of potential for incest, particularly in the later scenes, which lions will definitely avoid when possible," Dr Jordan says.

In real life, female lions live together in family groups, while male lions tend to leave their pride at around four or five years old and join a different one.

This is to avoid breeding with close relatives.

Which brings up the possibility of incest in The Lion King.

Nala is about the same age as Simba.

"She is at least a sort of cousin of Simba and possibly even a full sibling. So there's a little clanger there," Dr Jordan says.

"There's no benefit to Simba of returning to Pride Rock. He would disperse in real life … and take over another pride far from his own."

All in all, the whole Pride Lands succession plan - where the firstborn son takes over when the king dies - just doesn't hold up.

Scar's more attractive than Mufasa

Simba's uncle Scar is a typical Disney villain who wants to see Simba and Mufasa dead so he can take over as king of the Pride Lands.

The self-serving, jealous character gets his name from a huge scar over one of his eyes. Unlike his brother and nephew, Scar's mane is a deep, dark brown.

And it's that dark mane that would make Scar popular with the ladies - more so than Mufasa, Dr Jordan says.

Lions with a dark mane are more attractive to females than their light-maned counterparts because making all that pigment uses energy.

So the darkness of a lion's mane is thought to indicate how well-fed he is, and is a proxy for his overall "evolutionary fitness".

"It's a bit like a peacock's tail but in lion language. It's essentially an honest signal of fitness to the female," he says.

This is based on a study from East Africa where life-sized models of lions, with different coloured manes, were put out on the savannah, and the responses of other lions recorded.

Females were more likely to approach and solicit males with dark manes.

"So Scar is actually the hot one," Dr Jordan says.

Hyenas don't hang with lions

A trio of hyenas - called Shenzi, Banzai and Ed - do Scar's bidding. He's seen throwing scraps of food to them.

But in nature, hyenas and lions compete with each other.

"They are both top-order predators … they're used to working around one another, but it is not ever described as a cooperative relationship," Dr Jordan says.

Hyenas live in clans of up to 100 individuals, some related and some not.

They're also highly intelligent.

Mufasa's death scene, in which a wildebeest stampede is started by the hyenas, is a realistic hunting strategy, Dr Jordan says.

"Hyenas run prey down over long distances and probably the most typical way that hyenas will initiate a hunt is making the prey run, like they do in the stampede of the wildebeest."

He says hyenas will also watch a herd, pick out a younger or weaker individual, then run them down over several kilometres.

Timon and Pumbaa wouldn't be mates

Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog find Simba in the desert after he flees the Pride Lands following his father's death.

But meerkats are from southern Africa and The Lion King is set in East Africa, Dr Jordan says.

Plus, he adds, "[meerkats] are extremely timid animals … if a warthog were to approach or run close by, I think they'd be running to the closest bolt hole".

And what about Pumbaa's smelly farts?

"They run with their tail up in the air, so there's a good chance that if they do fart, it would make it to you," Dr Jordan says.

Although he can't recall ever smelling a warthog fart, they are omnivores and eat everything.

"I imagine given their diet … that you wouldn't really want to be downwind of one."

- ABC