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Quote:Since you are making such a claim, do you have any proof of Lions killing adult elephants? And even if it did happen it was likely done by a huge group of lions not a single individual so there is a big difference
Look up the Savuti pride of Botswana. They adapted to hunt elephants in the dry season. One of their kills (a smaller adult) was captured in the documentary Planet Earth in the 00s. The behaviour has also been documented by Beverly and Dereck Joubert (see Joubert 2006 - the majority of kills were of elephants aged between 4 and 15 years old, but there were also several kills of 15+ year-old elephants, at least one of which was classed as a full-sized adult. If that’s pay-walled, Power 2009 also has a discussion).
And yep, they did indeed hunt them in big groups. That is what makes them such a threat - this is about the hypothetical situation of tigers learning to survive in Africa. They, too, would likely have to adapt to become social in order to stand a chance of survival in that particular environment, given the existing competition (a similar-sized cat that lives in big groups and already hunts the biggest prey available, plus also hyenas - themselves a very dangerous threat to lions when they form big enough clans).
I read both the papers that you attached and there was only 1 single elephant killed by the Lions which was an adult and it does not say whether it was a male or a female. So the Lions made 187 attempts to kill adult elephants but only 1 was successful and it could be a female and it may or may not have been healthy.
The second paper only describes elephants between 9 and 11 years of age. And the second paper also describes that it takes at least 25 Lions to kill an elephant in that age range as every single attempt failed unless there were at least 25 lions attempting.
So no, based on the data that we have you cannot say that Lions prey on adult elephants. They don't!
I am attaching the data below
“There was only 1 single elephant killed by the lions which was an adult.”
“You cannot say that lions prey on adult elephants. They don’t!”
These two comments contradict each other. You asked for data showing that lions have preyed on adult African elephants, and that is what I’ve provided.
As far as I’m aware tiger predation on elephants in India (which are smaller than those in Africa) is less-well documented in rigorous academic studies. They, too, prefer to prey on the young, injured and sick though, which is only logical, given the risk:reward ratio.
Personal Opinion & Speculations
