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Debate and Discussion about Wild Animals
behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?
behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?
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behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?
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Sorry about the low quality I had it photographed by my son from the book and sent to me,but clearly this juvenile elephant is still a large prey, according to Shrader et al. An adult elephant will have a shoulder height of over 220 cms, sub-adults from the eruption of tusks to adulthood ( ages 4 to 20) will have a shoulder height of 150 to 220 cms and weigh between 800 and 3200 kg
 *This image is copyright of its original author
 (10-25-2015, 09:51 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: I have a picture of a lone male lion killing a subadult elephant ( I will post it next week when I am back in town) it is from the book Predators by Ross, subadult African elephants can be anything from 1500 to 3000 kg so it is just his estimate. Thanks for the replay. I am going to see the picture in order to comment. I know that giraffes are preyed by lions, but I don't know of a male or female lion killing, alone, a fully grow giraffe. According with Nowak (1999), the giraffes (male and female) weight between 550 - 1930 kg, with average adult individuals been of 800 kg. So, there is a wide range of sizes and although I think that a large male lion can kill an average giraffe breaking its slender neck, large bulls could be killed only by groups of several lions. I know of only one giraffe killed by a single lioness, but the specimen was hardly over 600 kg. Elands are also reported as prey, but the largest specimens weight an average of 650 kg and they are not very commonly hunted, like for example buffaloes. With this in mind, I still think that a record bull of 900 kg is the upper prey for a large lion in a single combat-hunt. Obviously, like you say, lions and tigers will hunt what they can found, and in Africa, the common animals will be wildebeest (141 - 295 kg) and in India will be the chital deer (32 - 93 kg), so they are they common prey. However, if they can, they will select the larger prey available, as the use of energy is high but the retribution is considerably more than the one of a small prey. Take in count that a male chital of c.77 kg is more than enough for a solitary tiger and a male wildebeest of c.232 kg will be perfect for an average lion pride. Predation of jaguars on tapirs is common in all south America, but Sunquist & Sunquist (2002) using scat data, report the occurrence of this item prey only in the Paraguayan Chaco, where tapir constitute only 1.5% of the diet (the common item there is the peccary and the Brocket and white-tailed deer with 23% respectively). Like you say, scat analysis don't provide clear data about the age and health state of the prey (although some studies does), but some pictures posted in the jaguar topic in this forum show jaguars killing adult tapirs of no less than 200 kg. As far I know, there are no reported cases of jaguars killing tapirs in Guatemala, probably because they are very small. Although jaguars do hunt domestic zebu of over 600 kg, the banteng killed by the Javanese tigers were wild animals, not domestic, so it is an impressive feat for this almost extinct tiger group (surviving only in Sumatra). Thanks for the clarification on the case of the leopard killing an eland, so at the end it was a lucky shot for the great cat. (10-25-2015, 11:20 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Sorry about the low quality I had it photographed by my son from the book and sent to me,but clearly this juvenile elephant is still a large prey, according to Shrader et al. An adult elephant will have a shoulder height of over 220 cms, sub-adults from the eruption of tusks to adulthood ( ages 4 to 20) will have a shoulder height of 150 to 220 cms and weigh between 800 and 3200 kg Great picture, thank for it. To be sincere, this young elephant doesn't look of more than 700 - 900 kg, let out a figure of 2,000 kg. Ross probably made a gross estimation here. Sorry for disturb you, but I will like to make just one final question, there is evidence if this lion was alone? I mean, other lions could be out of the picture, and the young elephant could be killed by the lion groups and latter claimed for the male, like they normally do. Could you post the description of this particular hunt in the book? For advance, thanks for your data, it is really good to see someone that actually contribute with all here. 
(10-26-2015, 10:06 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(10-25-2015, 11:20 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Sorry about the low quality I had it photographed by my son from the book and sent to me,but clearly this juvenile elephant is still a large prey, according to Shrader et al. An adult elephant will have a shoulder height of over 220 cms, sub-adults from the eruption of tusks to adulthood ( ages 4 to 20) will have a shoulder height of 150 to 220 cms and weigh between 800 and 3200 kg Hi Guate this elephant judging by its tusks and length is around six years of age , African elephants being the largest terrestrial mammals show immense size even during their young age, a new born bush African elephant is 100 to 120 kg, by the time it is weaned it is 600 kg ( two and a half years) and when tusks erupt it is already over a ton ( 4 years of age), most lion predation on elephants target the age group 4 to 9 years of age where the elephant is between 1000 and 2000 kg at this age the young elephants are less dependent on their mothers and are more easily separated and killed than younger calves who are under close maternal protection, this behavior is documented by Joubert ( Savute - Botswana), Loveridge ( Hwange-Zimbabwe) and Vanherle (Zakouma- Chad). I agree that this elephant is not likely to weigh 2000 kg, but given it is definitely over 150 cms (compared to the lion) and it tusks have erupted I think it would be in the range of 1200 kg, either way Ross states it was killed by the male alone ( I posted a picture of some of his description), remarkable feat of strength none the less. Ross words : **This male killed this elephant entirely on his own, an impressive and extremely rare feat of daring** he must have witnessed the kill. As we both listed there many amazing accounts of pretty much every large felid taking down prey several times its size but the stoat killing a rabbit is almost 30 folds and the most astonishing..this is like a 130 kg lioness killing a 4 ton elephant!!!! I have been studying the feeding ecology of large felids since the 1980s and yet I can not say for sure if a tiger feeding on a chital will get more or less food than a pride of lions feasting on a wildebeest or a leopard on impala, there are too many variables that come into play, the constant thing is that there is an amazing formula regulating the frequency of hunt, availability of scavenged carrion, retention time, competition, size of prey, degree of hunger, season, edible part of prey, and the presence of cubs and pride members. A kill that will provide a tiger or a lion with 8 kg/day for males and 5 kg/day for females will keep them healthy, if there is less food intake or mouths to feed then more frequent hunts will be attempted, if suitable prey is not present..larger prey will be attempted and so on. Simply amazing! (10-26-2015, 09:58 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(10-25-2015, 09:51 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: I have a picture of a lone male lion killing a subadult elephant ( I will post it next week when I am back in town) it is from the book Predators by Ross, subadult African elephants can be anything from 1500 to 3000 kg so it is just his estimate. Thanks Guate, two quick comments 1-The jaguar feeding on a tapir in Misiones Argentina showed a fine jaguar eating a tapir of similar size for less than 10 seconds, is this what you meant...also note how the jaguar is eating standing up like a dog or a hyena versus it typical cat fashion. 2-As far I know zebu cattle in India and Africa do not exceed 350 kg..do you have a reference for them weighing almost double that in South America or could this be another breed of cattle, like several European breeds 
I think this was Cecil, and he just managed to knock down an elephant calf who probably weighed about a tonne by himself before his sworn brother Jericho came to help.
It was not trying, it stood his ground vs the mammoth.
Thanks for this video Grizzly, i can honestly watch it over and over again like a fanatic! (10-27-2015, 08:06 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote:(10-26-2015, 10:06 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(10-25-2015, 11:20 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Sorry about the low quality I had it photographed by my son from the book and sent to me,but clearly this juvenile elephant is still a large prey, according to Shrader et al. An adult elephant will have a shoulder height of over 220 cms, sub-adults from the eruption of tusks to adulthood ( ages 4 to 20) will have a shoulder height of 150 to 220 cms and weigh between 800 and 3200 kg Well, it is possible that in fact, this young elephant could be of over 1,000 kg, although I remember some relative larger-body gaurs kills weighing less than that. I guess that the young age of the elephant could be other factor in favor of the lion, as it was probably very scared of the lion and instead of fight back, probably only tried to run, which proved to be ineffective against a more experienced killer. About the chital and wildebeest situation, I was not trying to say that lions of tigers will get more or less food, the point was to say that it is more effective and easy for a tiger to kill a chital, just like it is more effective to hunt a wildebeest for a group of lions. The food intake obviously will change, as a chital of 70 kg will provide food for two or three days for a tiger, but a wildebeest of about 200-250 kg will provide food for one or two days, or even for a single meal, depending of the size of the pride. Other point of the example was to state that of all the available preys in the two continents, these are the most common and probably the most easy to found, however some tiger and lion populations had proved that when available, they specifically target the larger prey, independently of they density. It is great to know that you have actually investigated large predators in they habitat. It is good to have you here. Thanks for all your data. (10-27-2015, 09:00 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Thanks Guate, two quick comments In fact, I was referring to this case:  *This image is copyright of its original author The animal, even with the decomposition of the body, seems larger than an average jaguar, of any area. Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicstang/6210806401 And this skull from a large specimen, hunted by a jaguar:  *This image is copyright of its original author Obviously, like any loner predator, they would prefer the preys of relative they own size, but this prove that like the other great cats, jaguar can and do predate on tapirs much larger than them. On the zebu, I can talk to you from first hand. When I made a field camp in the town of El Adelanto, department of Jutiapa, in Guatemala, I investigate the business organization of the breeders of cattle in the area, and I can tell you that the animals are very large, even when the town itself is poor and with many hills, which cause that the animals do not produce too many milk as they use much of the energy to move between mountains. The point is that at least in that area and the surroundings, the cattle was of average size but very robust. In fact, the largest bull that I saw did not measured over 170 cm (excluding the hump of fat) at the shoulders but probably weighed no less than 700 kg! Cows probably weighed between 300 to 400 kg, with the larger specimens scratching the 500 kg (at least 3 cows, the larger was a black one and very aggressive). In the southern area of my country, zebus are way larger, with some bulls reaching the size of a pretty good gaur (I have saw them in person! They are very tall with that great white color) and cows are also large, this thanks to the fact that these areas are plane and with rich forage, which produce larger specimens (the cows in this areas produce the largest quantities of milk in the country). Based in this facts, I can guess that the domestic and feral zebus in South America probably weight somewhat the same, and if we take in count that those territories are, apparently, more rich than those of my country, I guess that the zebu can be as large as those in Guatemala. I speak from my own experience, but there are areas where the cattle is smaller, like those in India and Africa, which look very skinny. Just one clarification, the correct name of the cattle of those dimensions is Brahman, but in Guatemala it is popularly known as "cebú", with "c" in the wide sense of the word, because of the hump. However, in fact, there are several variations among the group zebú, some small and others large (like the Brahman), although all originated from India.
I was searching for a few images of the domestic-feral cattle in the Pantanal of Brazil and they certainly looks slightly skinnier in comparison with the animals that I saw. Probably they weigh some kg less, with females of 200-300 kg and males of up to 500 kg in the best case. However, a jaguar of 100 kg killing a bull of 300 kg is still impressive, even if the animal is domestic, I guess.
I leave you this video of some of the best cattle in Guatemala, although some specimens are from other countries of Central America, like Nicaragua. The specimens that I saw in El Adelanto (and other parts of the country) were not as large, with the exception of the large white bull that I mentioned before. I think that I have a picture of that male, I will try to search it for you. I remember than many years ago, I saw taller bulls than those in the video, maybe the next year I will go to one of those expositions to take pictures of those large animals. 
A young elephant, weighing one ton or a little bit more, isn't, by far, an adult. Thus a lion or a tiger killing an adult buffalo, weighing 600 kilos, or an adult gaur, almost a ton, accomplish a much more remarkable feat than for a young elephant. Same opinion as concerns an adult giraffe for a lion. A juvenile "big prey" cannot do anything against a big lone predator. We have to put into perpective such feats, I think...
The most remarkable feat on the topic of hunting from my point of view is the tiger that, in recent years, had acquired a taste for rhinoceros flesh. This particular Bengal tiger had stalked, ambushed, and killed several rhinos including mature adult females. The news articles did not say what method of killing the tiger used.
(11-02-2015, 10:59 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: I was searching for a few images of the domestic-feral cattle in the Pantanal of Brazil and they certainly looks slightly skinnier in comparison with the animals that I saw. Probably they weigh some kg less, with females of 200-300 kg and males of up to 500 kg in the best case. However, a jaguar of 100 kg killing a bull of 300 kg is still impressive, even if the animal is domestic, I guess. I do remember the prey ratio for a tiger is 5:1 which means a 200 kg tiger can kill a 1000 kg buffalo as the absolute largest prey. Do you have any scientific paper to sustain such claim? (11-02-2015, 12:01 PM)Spalea Wrote: A young elephant, weighing one ton or a little bit more, isn't, by far, an adult. Thus a lion or a tiger killing an adult buffalo, weighing 600 kilos, or an adult gaur, almost a ton, accomplish a much more remarkable feat than for a young elephant. Same opinion as concerns an adult giraffe for a lion. A juvenile "big prey" cannot do anything against a big lone predator. We have to put into perpective such feats, I think... Yes, a tuskless elephant calf is definitely no match for a large bovid. The calf in that video just got easily wasted by a neck bite from Cecil, while the buffalo will usually react by violent struggle in attempt to shake off the lion from its back. Against a large bovid, the male lion definitely has to apply with a different tactic, usually to chew off on the prey's back, and I even saw they did the same on a hippo. |
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