Have you seen the Barbary lion cubs born at a Czech zoo recently? Besides their size and enviable energy levels, there’s something that clearly sets them apart from their parents: they’ve got spots.

It’s not a feature unique to this population of lions in particular – spots can be seen on all young lion cubs, despite what baby Simba’s plain-coated appearance in the original version of The Lion King might lead us to believe (granted, they did fix that with the 2019 remake).

While an adult lion might be seen with a few faint spots on their legs or belly, for the most part, a cub’s spots gradually fade away as they mature. But why do they even have them in the first place?

“It’s all to do with camouflage,” explains The Big Cat Sanctuary . “Imagine a lion cub playing ‘hide and seek’ i

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