An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows a sedated lion positioned on its stomach to film the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios logo.

Verdict: False

The MGM Studios sign has been superimposed into the photo. The lion pictured was actually receiving a CAT scan for a medical issue.

Fact Check:

For roughly a century, a roaring lion has been featured in the well-known MGM Studios logo, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Several lions, including Leo, Tanner, Jackie and George, have appeared in the logo over the years, the magazine reported.

The Facebook post alleges that the photo of a lion lying on a table with its head through a large MGM Studios sign depicts the famous logo being filmed, with the caption partly reading, “Turns out he’s really not that Ferocious………just really PISSED OFF…….You would be, too!”

In reality, the lion pictured was not involved in the creation of the logo for MGM Studios. The film company’s logo has been photoshopped into the image. (RELATED: Does This Photo Show Tom Hanks Quarantined In Australia With Wilson The Volleyball?)

The original photo, taken in 2005 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shows a CAT scan being administered to a Barbary lion named Samson, who lived at the Hai-Kef zoo near Tel Aviv, Israel, Business Insider reported. The Telegraph, a British news outlet, published the photo with a similar description in August 2018.

“Two-year-old Samson, a Barbary lion, undergoing a (big) CAT scan at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2005,” reads The Telegraph’s caption. “Samson became a star attraction at an Israeli zoo after his life was saved by a vet in a pioneering nine hour brain operation.”

Samson suffered from “damage to the posterior portion of his skull, which applied pressure on his cerebellum and the upper sector of the spinal cord,” Dr. Merav Shamir, a veterinary neurological specialist at the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, said in a Hebrew University of Jerusalem press release. The veterinary team used a CAT scan to diagnose Samson’s condition, and he underwent an operation to treat it, according to Business Insider.

The lion successfully recovered from the operation and was reunited with his sister Delilah at the zoo in less than two weeks, according to the press release.