Lion Goes Viral With His Bizarre Hairstyle; Zoo Authorities Insist He Styled Himself

This lion has better hair days than most of us. You might say he's the "mane" attraction now.

Lakeisha

• Published in Animals
• July 22, 2022

A male lion at Guangzhou Zoo in Southern China has caused a stir on social media over its bizarre hairstyle. The white lion named Hanghang was spotted wearing a fringe hairstyle over the weekend, sparking outrage from people who accused the zoo authorities of dishevelling his exotic look.

Pictures of the lion surfaced on different social media platforms after someone who visited the Guangzhou Zoo saw the lion sporting the unusual haircut, took a picture, and shared it on a Chinese social media platform, the Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu).

Authorities at the Guangzhou Zoo were forced to make a statement after photos of Hanghang's bizarre hairstyle went viral on social media. While some people found the hairstyle funny, some demanded to know why they ruined the lion's natural look.

However, the zoo denied the allegations that they gave the lion the haircut. "We would never dare to cut his hair," one zoo worker reportedly said.

The worker said the lion's fringe hairstyle was most likely caused by heat and high humidity in Guangzhou. Hanghang arrived at Guangzhou Zoo in 2015 from Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province.

According to the zoo worker, his hair started falling straight due to Guangzhou's high humidity.

Guangzhou is one of the largest cities in China, with a population of over 18 million.

The city is in a subtropical monsoon climate zone, making its weather warm and humid all year round. Summers in Guangzhou are long, humid, and hot, while winters are short, mild, and sunny.

The Guangzhou Zoo authorities said Hanghang must have groomed himself by licking his paws and pawing his fur, resulting in the fringe hairstyle.

"There is no hairdressing programme at the zoo, and we dare not cut a lion's hair. You can say that he has 'designed' the hairstyle himself," the zoo authorities said in an interview with Global Times.

Lions spend much time daily licking themselves clean as house cats do. However, the goal is not just to get clean, but also to remove as much of their scent as possible so that prey won't notice their presence.

In the wild, for instance, if a lion lies in wait and an antelope gets a whiff of the lion's scent, it will run away.

So lions groom themselves to eliminate any smell that may give them away. Despite the Guangzhou Zoo authorities' best efforts to refute the accusation that they were the ones who gave Hanghang the fringe haircut, some Chinese social media users insist they are responsible.

According to one user, when they visited the zoo less than a week ago and saw the lion, he did not have a fringe hairstyle.

What do you think?

This is not the first time an animal would make headlines for sporting an unusual haircut. In 2020, a Tamil Nadu temple elephant became a sensation on the internet after she was photographed with a Bob-cut hairstyle.

Netizens named her "Bob-cut Sengamalam," and thousands of people trooped to the Rajagopalaswamy Temple in Mannargudi, India, to see her.

Lakeisha