It gets hot during midday, so lions, like many animals, prefer the shade. They're social creatures, however, so they like being close to each other, despite all their body heat making it much warmer. As a result, you occasionally see these piles of lions in the rough shape of the shade from trees. It's pretty funny.

Taken during a recent South Africa.

If you're interested, I dumped a ton of photos from the trip here:
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f381/shadowcheets/Photos/South%20Africa%202012/Photo%20Dump/

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