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behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?

United States Styx38 Offline
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"So…why don’t mountain lions defend their kills from bears? On occasion, they do. In one case in California, a large female mountain lion was displaced by an average-sized female black bear from a deer kill. The lion abandoned the site for 24 hours, but then looped back to confront the bear. What we found when we visited the kill a week later were the remains of the deer and bear, side by side."

Let's see.

Takes place in California? 

Mountain Lion dispersed from kill by Black Bear? 

Mountain Lion came back to kill the Black Bear? 

Mentioned by Mark Elbroch? 



Seems to be the same Bear, but confirmed as a sub-adult in an actual peer reviewed source.



Anyway, back to kills.


1. Camels should at least be comparable to Guanacos. 

They may not be as wild, but they are large (300-600 kg) and dangerous.

A Camel killed a man and chewed his head off.

"It took over 25 people to calm down an aggravated camel who bit off its owner's head in Rajasthan's Barmer district on Saturday, after being left in the sun the whole day with its limbs tied up.


The owner, Urjaram of Mangta village, had forgotten about having left his camel bound in the heat while entertaining guests at his house. TOI reports that when he went to untie it in the evening, the annoyed animal attacked him.



"The animal lifted him by the neck and threw him on to the ground, chewed the body and severed the head," said a villager named Thakara Ram. The camel is said to have attacked Urjaram in the past as well."

https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/came...2016-05-25


Another man killed by a Camel.

"The American owner of a wildlife park in the Mexican resort of Tulum has died after being kicked, bitten and sat on by a camel, and authorities have seized the private facility’s animals pending an investigation"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/o...lum-resort


A Camel bit a man so hard that his eye popped out.


"Animal bite injuries vary according to the geographical distribution, behavior, and anatomy of animals. Human injuries caused by camel bites are relatively rare. They are more common during the rutting season where male camels become more aggressive [1]. Due to the complex mechanism of camel bites, it is usually associated with high morbidity. The head and neck sustain frequent and severe injuries [2]. Injuries may involve facial wounds, skull fractures, intracranial bleeding, and cervical neurovascular injuries [1,2]. Herein, we report a unique case of a patient who sustained multiple camel bites to his face and neck that resulted in left eye evisceration, parotid duct injury, and facial nerve injury. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of globe rupture caused by a camel bite.


The mechanism of camel bite injuries is complex. This includes penetrating and crushing injuries, by the camel's sharp teeth and strong jaws, and blunt injuries when victims are picked up, shaken and thrown by the camels [1,3]. Globe injury caused by a camel bite has not been reported before. Our patient experienced repeated bites that resulted in multiple facial fractures and deep structure injuries involving his left eye and cheek. The camel deeply fixed its jaw in the patient's face using grinding movement that destroyed surrounding bones and intraocular contents and caused globe rupture of the left eye."

source: Balac, Korana, et al. "Globe rupture caused by a camel bite." Trauma case reports 21 (2019): 100202.

You can check the images of the man badly injured, but I am lazy to post them.


Here is a Camel still putting a good fight despite being restrained by a rope and having a slit neck. The slit is for Qurbani, an Islamic ritual of slaughtering animals for Eid al-Adha.




*This image is copyright of its original author








Here is a Camel kicking a man despite having its leg tied for Qurbani.




*This image is copyright of its original author






Now imagine how dangerous a Camel is for the likes of Big Cats, Wolves and Bears without any restraint. 

A smaller Big Cat won't fall down so easily like a man, but the kicking/stomping and biting from a belligerent 300-600 kg Ungulate is still going to be devastating.



2. So male Cougars, which are around 72 kg in Alberta with an 81 kg specimen kill 400+ kg animals like Feral Horse and a the Moose. They did make up <2% of the kills.


That is comparable to the two female Eland.


*This image is copyright of its original author



Aspects of the Ecology of Leopards (Panthera pardus) in the Little Karoo, South Africa by Gareth Mann


"However, two of the eland killed were adult females, suggesting that leopards in the area are capable of killing large prey weighing over 300 kg."


Now, Eland female can also reach and surpass 400 kg, but let us use minimal weights.

500 kg/72 kg = 6.94                            300 kg/41 kg = 7.32



Keep in mind that the male Leopards in the Little Karoo region were averaged at 41 kg, which is among the smallest of subspecies.

They managed to kill 2 female Elands out of 93 kills, so they had a 2.1 % kill rate.

This would mean Leopards and Cougars can kill animals up to around 7 times their weight.



3 a) Speaking of killing large animals, a Leopard killed a Bull Eland around 500+ kg.

It seems to be confirmed in peer reviewed studies.

"Leopards have an extremely catholic diet and have been recorded feeding on 92 prey species in sub-Saharan Africa alone, varying in size from small arthropods to adult male eland, Taurotragus oryx (Bailey 2005)." 

Balme, Guy, Luke Hunter, and R. O. B. Slotow. "Feeding habitat selection by hunting leopards Panthera pardus in a woodland savanna: prey catchability versus abundance." Animal Behaviour 74.3 (2007): 589-598.


Leopards are also reported to kill Feral or Free-ranging Horses.

"On 20 October 2005, an adult horse was killed by a large male. Fresh tracks of an adult female accompanied by a young cub were regularly seen near the kill, but we are not sure if they have fed on the kill."

source: Farhadinia, Mohammad S., Alireza Mahdavi, and Fatemeh Hosseini-Zavarei. "Reproductive ecology of the Persian Leopard, Panthera pardus saxicolor, in Sarigol National Park, northeastern Iran: (Mammalia: Felidae)." Zoology in the Middle East 48.1 (2009): 13-16.





*This image is copyright of its original author



Source: Mammals of the Soviet Union, Volume 2 Part 2 Carnivora (Hyenas and Cats)


The Badkhyz preserve in Turkmenistan and Northeastern Iran tend to have free-ranging Turkmen or Akhal-Teke Horses.


They are about the same size as the Feral Horse of the US.

"Akhal-Teke horses average 15.2 hands (62") at the withers and weigh 900–1,000 pounds (408-454 kg)"

https://livestockconservancy.org/index.p...akhal-teke


"Most wild horses stand 13 to 15 hands high (52-60 inches) and weigh from 700 to 1,000 pounds. "

https://www.blm.gov/programs/wild-horse-...and-burros


b) Ok.

Leopards also go for domestic animals.

E.g. Horses.

Quote:What are the perceived problem predators? Hyenas were thought to prey mostly on cattle (33% of reported kills presumed to be due to hyenas) and donkeys (40%), jackals were implicated most often for goat (69%) and sheep (68%)kills, leopards for horses (50%)



Source: "Cost of carnivore coexistence on communal and resettled land in Namibia" by Niki Rust and Laurie Marker


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247668488_Cost_of_carnivore_coexistence_on_communal_and_resettled_land_in_Namibia


Horse killed by Leopard in India 


*This image is copyright of its original author


source:  Kumar, Devender, 2011, “Study of Leopard Menace, Food Habits and Habitat Parameters in Mandi District, Himachal Pradesh”, thesis PhD, Saurashtra University


Adult Horse killed by Leopard in Iran.


*This image is copyright of its original author




Cows killed by Leopards.


*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author




*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author






I am also convinced Leopards can take on the largest prey depending on the ecosystem or region. However, the Lion and Tigers take on prey like Gaur, Cape Buffalo, Giraffe and Rhinos.
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RE: behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator? - Styx38 - 03-16-2021, 05:24 AM



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