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

[Styx38]

Quote:"Seems", so you don't know and are assuming, ok got it.

Lol at nitpicking a small word.

Confirmed by the same guy in California in a peer-reviewed source.


"The usurpation of puma kills was not without risk, as in one instance a puma killed a subadult black bear that had been feeding on its kill."

source: Allen, Maximilian L., L. Mark Elbroch, Christopher C. Wilmers, and Heiko U. Wittmer. "The comparative effects of large carnivores on the acquisition of carrion by scavengers." The American Naturalist 185, no. 6 (2015): 822-833.

Quote:Bizarre comparison to say the least, I don't know where to begin with.

Humans are fragile and can be killed by almost any committed livestock, showing cases of camels hurting humans to prove that leopards must be so extraordinary to kill them doesn't make those camels any more impressive. Killing livestock and killing a free raging animal are two very different things. In the first paper on camel predation in Kenya, it is stated very clearly that the camels were in dire condition and dehydrated;

Well, actually Hyenas rarely went for the adult Camels, which indicates that adult Camel are still tough.

Also, the Guanaco were weakened by winter at the time.


While Guanaco were tough during a , a minority of them were taken by Mountain Lions.

"Overall, adult guanacos experienced surprisingly lower levels of mortality (adult male = 1%, adult female = 2%) than expected, despite the severe winter conditions, while juveniles experienced higher levels of mortality (13%) than expected"



So it seems that the weakest ones during a winter storm were picked out by Cougars at the time. 

It is a tit for tat that both the Leopard and Cougar took on the weakest of the Camelids at the time.

Quote:The first chart you posted very clearly stated that the average weight for the eland killed by leopards was 267 kg, not 400 kg

LOL, the 267 kg is an adjusted weight that includes adults, juvenile and sub-adults.



Mann (2014) stated it that in the source:



" When necessary, the biomass of some larger prey items (eland (Tragelaphus oryx), kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) and cattle (Bos taurus) was adjusted to compensate for leopards preying upon juvenile and sub-adult individuals. In the case of juveniles, adult biomass was multiplied by 0.3, while for sub-adults, the adult biomass was multiplied by 0.7 (Radloff & du Toit 2004)."



The guy even specified that adult female Eland are over 300 kg.



Here is the weight range for both sexes.


" Body mass averages 500–600 kg (range, 450–942 kg; no sample size given) for males ;   340–445 kg (range 317–470 kg; no sample size given) for females (Estes 1991). "

Pappas, Lindsay A. "Taurotragus oryx." Mammalian species 2002, no. 689 (2002): 1-5.


So, I can see a Leopard taking down a smaller Bull Eland that is 450 kg or just a bit above 500 kg.

Of course, a 600-900 kg Eland is not within the realms of a Leopard kill. That is for the Lions...

Quote:I'm sure they do, although the ages are rarely given (only the first excerpt mentions one as an adult) and the sexes of the horses aren't given either to determine how big they could've truly been. We do have that data for cougars.

To be fair, adult Horses do not have much of a sexual dimorphism, so there is no major weight difference between the two sexes. In fact, Knopf put the two adult sexes as having the same weight.



Also, Cougars rarely go for adults while focusing on juveniles and sub-adults. This is probably akin to Leopards.

Quote:I never disputed that, domestic and free-ranging animals are two different ball games. One is more docile and lives in a confined environment where a predator can more easily subdue it, the other one is more aggressive and muscled, with natural instincts to defend itself against its natural adversaries.

Fair point, though they can occasionally kill a predator.

Quote:Leopards take on what they can take, gaur, buffalo, giraffe, and rhinos are far beyond the range of what a leopard can hunt. 

That is the point. Leopards and Cougars have big kills. However, Lions and Tigers take on the biggest/most dangerous prey of the Big Cats.



In terms of impressive kills, no single predator compares to the two, outside of the Polar Bear. Reply