African Lion

Lions represent the kind of competition that business strategy obsesses over - and often overvalues. As apex predators in the Serengeti, approximately 3,000 lions prey on the wildebeest migration, yet they cannot deplete a 2-million-strong herd due to predator dilution effects. Lions time hunts to synchronized calving season, targeting vulnerable newborns. This is interference competition: direct physical conflict over resources, the most visible form of competitive interaction.

But lions also exemplify K-selection reproductive strategy - heavy investment in few offspring within stable environments. Cooperative hunting, cub protection, and extended parental care require enormous energy investment per offspring. This strategy succeeds in predictable savanna environments where quality and protection matter more than quantity and speed. Lions don't win through reproductive volume; they win through offspring survival.

For business, lions illustrate that head-to-head competition - the market share battles and direct confrontations that dominate business school case studies - is often less important than exploitative competition (depleting shared resources) or apparent competition (shared predators or customers). Lions are impressive, but the wildebeest herd's real threats aren't predators - they're grass availability and river crossing bottlenecks. Traditional competitive strategy focuses on the lions while missing the actual constraints.