A rule known until now only in a hawk.

Why does a lion brake in the middle of a chase?

Not because it is tired. Speed makes every turn wider, and past about 5 metres a second a lion cannot push sideways against the

ground any harder. So to follow a zebra that cuts away, it has to slow down. A research team filmed 67 lion chases from a drone,

tracked every frame, and measured how lions steer and when they brake. They also found that lions aim partly like a guided missile,

a rule known until now only in a hawk.

Source: Duporge, I. & Frost, H. (2026). Quantifying the control laws governing terminal attack in lions. Current Biology, September

2026.

DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.018

All lion footage is real: the authors’ drone footage, Zenodo, CC BY 4.0. Animal figurines, rendered backgrounds and the music are AI generated for illustration.