I'm not sure if this has been suggested beforehand (and if it has, forgive me), but a random thought occurred to me -

What if there were deaf lions?

I mean, I'm sure there's been real life cases of deaf lions, and I can't imagine they'd live long past their cub years, as they wouldn't hear warning growls from pride members or danger like hyenas or whatever.

But deafness is a natural occurrence and is found often in cats - usually solid white cats with blue or heterochromia (though typically in the latter cases, they are deaf in the ear that shares the same side of the face as the blue eye)

I asked chat and whether the mutation would be lethal or not was debatable. Lethal as an adult, lethal as a cub, as it wouldn't be able to hear danger or stampedes -- and if it were non-lethal, they couldn't participate in hunting patrols, as they may not learn to hunt properly.

It wouldn't require any line-edits, but the pride interactions would be different!
Say for example,

As you go to approach Cub, you see them walking away from you. You give up trying to get their attention after calling their name several times and still not receiving any response from them whatsoever.

You're listening to the cubs chatter, but when it comes Cub's turn to speak, what they say is a jumbled up, intelligible mess of noises, earning it giggles from its littermates.

Cub's running over to greet you when you spot another cub charging for it. You try to growl a warning, but-- Oop! They didn't hear it.


Edits:;

Regarding line art edits -- Local - #60356
"At the newborn cub stage, it would appear normal, possibly with young cub, too, but the normal cub stage would appear as a cub sitting, with a confused look on its face and head tilted, one ear perked and the other flat out. At adolescents, the ears would be slightly torn and flat out, the expression could be sad, possibly also sitting. If they make it to adulthood, they could be standing with their head and tail lowered, ears almost completely shredded" - 5.2.16

Regarding random deaths -- Gray - #65134
"As an addition to local's idea of random death:
You know how, in cub protection, there are random messages about hyenas, lions, etc?
Maybe they could add some of these to deaf.
"When name was out exploring, they were sure everything was safe. They went to get a drink from a watering hole and a crocodile snapped at them, dragging them under the surface, and drowning them." - 5.3.16


Additional Ideas! (6.7.18)
https://www.lioden.com/topic.php?id=304429230356&page=2#304441151453
PLEASE check out this post on the thread! It's full of great ideas such as flavor and training texts, how to obtain the mutation via breeding, and possible looks the mutation can have!
What do you guys think? If you have any ideas, or simply aren't interested, post below! I'll be sure to read it! <: