If you’re a 90s kid, then you have probably watched Disney’s The Lion King more times than you can count.
One of the animated film’s most iconic scenes is the one in the beginning when Rafiki was holding a newborn Simba up for all the animal kingdom to see their new king.
The moment has been referenced a million times and recreated by fans as Halloween costumes or pictures with their own babies.
But photographer Dafna Ben Nun is one of the lucky few to be at the right place at the right time to witness a similar scene unfold in the wild involving actual wild animals.
What more, she came home with an awesome picture of it.
Life imitating art?
Here is a drawing of scene from The Lion King in which the mandrill, Rafiki, held up baby Simba, the lion, on top of Pride Rock for all the animal kingdom to see.
Now, are you ready for the real thing?
Here is a very familiar scene captured in real life. Photographer Dafna Ben Nun captured this moment while visiting Zimbabwe.
Looking at the two pictures side by side, the similarities are hard to ignore.
Although we would like to point out that the animals in the real-life picture are baboons while Rafiki from The Lion King is a mandrill. Of course, there’s also no lion cub to be found in the photograph. But, it’s still pretty close.
Is this a case of life imitating art or art imitating life?
Well, one thing’s for sure, there’s no way these baboons have seen The Lion King.
Maybe the creators of the movie took inspiration from actual sights they saw while researching to make it?
Capturing the moment
Dafna Ben Nun, a native of Israel, was on a trip to the southern part of the African continent to capture the continent’s fascinating wildlife when she came upon the scene.
It was while she was in Zimbabwe when she captured the photo of the baboon holding up its baby while another one looks on.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw an adult baboon holding a baby, looking exactly like Simba in the Lion King. It was just a split second, but it was fascinating to watch. They were all in the same group, so no harm was done to any of the animals.”
– Dafna Ben Nun in an interview with the Daily Mail.
It’s a missed opportunity that nobody was able to capture the moment on video.
Fans and netizens would definitely have a field day editing the video and adding the film’s own soundtrack to it.
If you remember, the iconic scene happened with the chorus of the song ‘Circle of Life’ written and performed by Elton John.
Another thing the movie got right
Seeing this photo, it seems that the creators of The Lion King tried to make the film somewhat realistic.
A fact-checking article at Medium found that lion uncles really do conspire to commit murder.
Apparently, infanticide is pretty common within lion prides in the wild. This act of killing is usually done by male lions to overthrow the current dominant male lion and prevent him from having offspring that might become the leader of the pride in the future.
An article from the BBC confirms this as well:
“In lion society, for example, killing infants results in their mothers becoming quickly fertile again, increasing the chance of the new males having offspring. And if they don’t kill any infant males that are not their own, they run the risk these cubs will grow up and stage their own coup.”
It seems like Uncle Scar isn’t the only murderous lion out there.
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Video source: Roxanne DS via YouTube
