Photographer Nick Nichols made several extended trips to the Serengeti between July 2011 and January 2013, determined to break new visual ground in the coverage of the Serengeti Lion. Here, C-Boy, a dark-maned male lion defending his interests, confronts the peril of lion-on-lion violence on a daily (and nightly) basis. Four years ago, C-Boy barely survived a fight for dominance with three other males. #

The Vumbi females -- their pride name is Swahili for "dust" -- kill a warthog they've dragged from its burrow. Such small meals help bridge the lean, hungry, dry season, when cubs may otherwise starve. #

The Vumbis rest on a kopje, or rocky outcrop, near a favorite water hole. Lions use kopjes as havens and outlooks on the plains. When the rains bring green grass, wildebeests arrive in vast herds. #

Cubs of the Simba East pride: too young to kill but old enough to crave meat. Adult females, and sometimes males, do the hunting. Zebras and wildebeests rank high as chosen prey in the rainy season. #

C-Boy mates with a Kibumbu pride female. After fathering cubs, a resident male can be displaced by other males. His young offspring will then be killed by the new males or left to die. #

C-Boy and a Vumbi female relax between matings. During estrus a female may be monopolized for days by a single male consort. Dark manes correlate with robustness, and dark-maned studs like C-Boy are preferred. #

Older cubs like these Vumbi youngsters are raised together as a creche, or nursery group. Pride females, united in the cause of rearing a generation, nurse and groom their own and others' offspring. #