Olbarnoti

Olbarnoti was a male lion of Kenya’s Masai Mara and the lifelong partner of his brother Lolparpit, with whom he founded a dynasty across the Olare Motorogi Conservancy. Where Lolparpit was the risk-taker, Olbarnoti is remembered as the steadier of the two; the brothers sometimes fought each other over mating rights.

Lolparpit and Olbarnoti were brothers born at the beginning of 2005 in the Ridge Pride of Kenya’s Masai Mara, younger brothers of Cheza, Sala and Junior of the BBC’s Big Cat Diary. Late in 2007 the five took the Olkiombo Pride, but only the older three stayed, and the two young brothers moved on. In 2008 they took the new Enkoyonai Pride in the Olare Orok Conservancy, and in mid-2010 drove the old Moniko males, Mzee and Lolalai, from the Moniko Pride, making themselves the rulers of the whole conservancy until mid-2011. Their sons include the six Bila Shaka brothers, born in the Moniko Pride in 2014.

When Lolparpit died in November 2020, Olbarnoti was still strong, and in 2021 he was filmed at sunrise with the lions of the Enkoyonai Pride, the pride he and his brother had first ruled thirteen years earlier. His later fate has not been published.