Who would win in a big cat beauty contest?

Lions, cheetahs or leopards?

Cheetah's the best looking.

It's gotta be the leopard.

Leopard's always the best looking cat.

Cheetahs are the clear winner.

I mean, what kind of a question is that?

You know, leopards are clearly by far the most beautiful of all of them.

Don't worry, buddy.

There's still a lot of love for the lion.

Lions look like they're so proud and majestic and I kind of feel like I want to emanate that in myself.

When they're well-fed and in good health and they've got big manes, like our main male characters Madumo and Big Toe, it looks like somebody's kind of pumped them up.

They're just sort of big, strong and yeah, quite intimidating when they're up close to you.

But it's that big mane that really is, I suppose the most striking thing of all.

The mane of a lion is similar to a beard of a human.

You get a lot of variety.

Mathata the lion cub is entering that fluffy and awkward phase, and he could probably go for a bit of a glow up right now.

Mathata's actually quite easy to distinguish from the other, the other cubs.

He's bigger than them, but one big change is that he's started to grow his mane.

He's got this little kind of scruffy toupee on his head which sets him apart.

Some get golden manes, some manes become darker, have golden patches.

Once you see it developing, you see a lion really look so majestic and beautiful.

See there?

Everyone is impressed by a lion mane.

But what are these manes really for?

The purpose of a lion's mane is to make them look as big and as intimidating as possible, and also to make them as, attractive-looking as, as possible.

And what sort of research has shown is that a male with a big mane has managed to reach that size, despite the obstacles, despite the fact that he overheats, despite the fact that he's more visible to prey, even with everything with his mane working against him, he's still here.

So that's what lionesses find attractive.

That's what other lions find intimidating.

This has got to be the most beautiful lion I've ever seen.

He's got a gorgeous yellow mane.

I mean, he's a heartbreaker for sure.

This is the type of lion that deserves to be on a cereal box.

But the lionesses might not agree.

For lions, blondes don't have more fun.

Research has shown that blonder males are less attractive to female lions than those with, with dark manes.

At the other end of the spectrum of big cats here, cheetah cubs may also use their fur to intimidate through mimicry.

Cheetahs, they look completely different to how they do when they grow up, because when they're born, they have this really cool silvery fluff on their back.

It's called a mantle.

And one of the theories is that they are designed to mimic honeybadgers.

Honeybadgers are fearsome.

They, they have incredible attitude and even lions think twice before attacking a honeybadger.

But these young lions are still learning that honeybadgers are not to be messed with.

The team have been filming Bo the cheetah cub for months, watching as he's grown up.

Look at Bo.

What a beautiful young man he's become.

He has grown so much.

Wow.

I mean, you can just see that he, he's still got some growing to do, but he was so much smaller last time.

He's growing into his legs now, he's growing into his tail.

As cheetah cubs get older, the features that stand out the most are their length in general.

So they've got those really long bodies, which mean that they have a long spine and that spine is really flexible.

So that means when they're running, they've got so much more movement, meaning that they can just power their way towards prey.

In fact, their long legs and counterbalancing tail all contribute to the most famous feat: speed.

Cheetahs have a burst of speed that can't be matched, but they don't necessarily have the ability to maintain that for long distance.

So to give them the best chance of catching any prey, they need to have as small a gap between them and prey when they start their chase.

Cheetahs have quite a specific hunting technique, and that technique is to use areas of scrub and bush and shadow to get as close as they can to their prey.

We've just entered the area where we believe this male cheetah is.

Hopefully he's walking.

They're really hard to see hey, you can see the color of this grass, they perfectly blend in with their spots.

What a beautiful, beautiful family.

We've got a combined total of probably around 6000 spots, maybe even more.

As daytime hunters, scientists theorize that cheetahs have even evolved their own sun protection to keep them in top hunting shape.

Cheetahs have these really iconic stripes under their eyes, and I like to call them cheetah sunglasses.

There's been a lot of speculation about why cheetahs have the tear marks down their cheeks.

It helps them with their vision during the day.

Dark color on the cheek absorbs light, and it stops it from bouncing into the eye and creating, like, glare.

It's really interesting because you contrast that to a leopard who's more nighttime active, and they've got often very pale around the eyes for the opposite reason.

So some have said that the darkness around the eye and underneath the eye and that stripe has, has got to do with, with that.

And that's not the only difference between these spotted cats.

Cheetah and leopard coat patterns are quite similar, but very different.

If you look closely, there's quite a large difference.

Cheetahs have individual spots.

The leopard has what they call rosettes, which are clusters of spots that form almost a little circle.

These rosettes take camouflage to the next level.

The amount of detail that's in their coat and their ability to disguise is uncanny.

They blend with whatever environment they're in.

It's such a typical leopard look, just eyes peeping through from the shadows.

I always say that they're shadow cats, that camouflage is unbelievable, just very special the way that they blend.

Leopard spots are kind of the most impressive thing about them.

They're able to get this kind of disruptive kind of camouflage from them, where they, it disrupts their body line and they can kind of blend into their environment.

Male leopards share these rosettes with the females, but little else.

Leopards do display what's known as sexual dimorphism.

The males can be almost double the weight of the females and double in size physically.

But they fight with other males and then bulk is really an advantage, so the males get incredibly big.

It is great to see male leopards.

I love seeing them.

They're magnificent creatures.

I mean, this is a magnificent cat.

The females, however, stay relatively small and that's to keep all the small cat attributes.

That makes them really good at stalking, it makes them really good at hunting, ability to jump.

It makes them what they are as leopards.

And the best thing about the big cats' appearance is the beauty meeting function.

You tend to witness that a lot of the characteristics that each cat has is somewhat linked to an advantage that they use towards them.

It could be spots, it could be their color., it could be their size.

It helps them one way to get, a leg up in trying to survive in this vast wilderness.

I don't think anything rivals the looks of a big cat.

They are unique.

So, no, nothing compares to a big cat at all.

Fight me.

[laughs]