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Crocodile and Big cats Interaction
Crocodile and Big cats Interaction
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Crocodile and Big cats Interaction
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 (10-19-2020, 11:17 AM)Shadow Wrote: Well, Machli was a tigress, so quite a lot smaller than male lions. So while Machli killed a crocodile estimated to be 12 ft, 14 ft means only half a meter more, while male lion is roughly 1,5-2 times bigger than a tigress. So I really don´t see anything extraordinary in it, that a lion kills a crocodile around 4 meters long.A 14-foot crocodile is on average 2 times heavier than a 12-foot crocodile and about 1/3 heavier than a 13 foot one. I would not be so skeptical if Bumi lions were adult males, but they are young ones, hardly so much larger than the adult tigress. (10-19-2020, 11:17 AM)Shadow Wrote: And what comes to it, from where this started now, I find it interesting, that with time I had to change my opinion. I thought a long time, that crocodiles simply dominate lions, but with time I have changed my mind. Big cats seem to be able to handle crocodiles surprisingly well, when they need to. I have found far more cases of lions killing crocodiles than vice versa. Overall when looking at big cats and crocodiles, known incidents leading to death of one, seem to be usually such, that crocodile is killed.Perhaps you are currently underestimating the number of cases where crocodiles killing big cats. Mark Ross, an experienced safari guide, knows two cases when crocodile stalked and killed a male lion. In both cases, there was not much struggle: Quote:Hunting Anything and everything is on a crocodile's menu. I know of two cases in which a crocodile stalked and successfully killed a male lion. And in both cases it wasn't much of a fight once the crocodile got the lion into the water.https://books.google.ru/books?id=E01QAAA...+crocodile This is his website: https://markrosssafaris.com/ A well-known case describing a male lion killed by a crocodile: Quote:Mid 2007, one of the Roller Coaster males was killed by a Crocodile. Since then, his brother has maintained dominance over the Styx pride and is believed to be the Sire of their current cubs. There have been a number of reports of the Styx lionesses seen mating with males from the Mapogo Coalition but the old Roller Coaster male is usually in attendance with the Styx pride and accepts the cubs as his. So don’t tell him they might not all be his.http://blog.wildearth.tv/2009_06_01_archive.html Another one: Quote:Apparently, two weeks ago the Mapogo Males were drinking from the Sand river in Londolozi Game Reserve when a crocodile attacked and killed one of them at the waters edge it would be the second male lion killed by a crocodile on the Sabi Sands in the past few months as one of the Rollercoaster males (Mala Mala name, they are the Shaws Males on Londolozi) was also killed by a crocodile recently.http://blog.wildearth.tv/2007/10/story-b...males.html Cott (1961) also mentions cases of crocodiles preying on lions:  *This image is copyright of its original author https://books.google.ru/books?id=0rCRBQA...on&f=false Similar data from a book published earlier than paper by Cott (1961):  *This image is copyright of its original author https://books.google.ru/books?redir_esc=...drown+lion Rangers sighting reported in an African Wild Life magazine in 1964: Quote:CROCODILE GRABS LION.https://books.google.ru/books?id=gIgoAQA...UQ6AEIKDAA Recent observation of mugger crocodiles predation on a young male Asiatic lion and on a leopard from CSG journal:  *This image is copyright of its original author http://www.iucncsg.org/365_docs/attachme...421f9e.pdf Recent photographs of a crocodile feeding on a lion. The original source states that in the first photo, the lion is still alive ("images taken in Kruger at the low level bridge on the H1-2. The first is a huge Croc in a tussle with a full grow Lion and a Barbel getting caught up in the battle"):  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6225755751?red_tag=2885105181 Video with a crocodile feeding on a lion: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2171977466381428 It is not known if this lioness was killed by a crocodile, but the same can be said for dead crocodiles photographed next to lions:  *This image is copyright of its original author Quote:The Castleton pride, broken and fragmented, recently suffered the loss of four pride members. We topped the LTA dam wall to find a strange whitish object floating in the water. Only when we saw the teeth could we make out what it was… a lioness! Suddenly she disappeared under the water, only to rise again in the jaws of an enormous crocodile as it thrashed her from side to side! Whether she had been taken by the croc, or died on land and was pulled into the water by the large reptile was uncertain. Momentarily a hippopotamus arrived at the carcass, perhaps out of curiosity, and the crocodile moved on. In the shade of a nearby tree her sub-adult youngster sat and watched, emaciated and on the brink of death. It was painful to see her and after that we never saw the youngster again.We found a young male, also badly emaciated, lying next to a waterhole. My heart went out to him as I heard the not too distant bellows of a large (over 200) herd of buffalo. Instead of running away he hid in the grass and waited for them… perhaps his hunger had crazed him and he thought he might somehow snatch a calf from the herd. Perhaps he somehow knew his time had come. As the herd walked past him, one of the bulls spotted him, and gave a call I had never heard before. It was low, menacing, frightening. It was the call to attack.https://www.facebook.com/Mapogo.Lions/ph...Eg&theater Crocodile with dead lioness:  *This image is copyright of its original author Asiatic lioness, probably killed by mugger(s):  *This image is copyright of its original author https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city...802167.cms Photo with a crocodile holding in its jaws what looks like a small lioness:  *This image is copyright of its original author There are no specific observations, but this article, published in the journal LIFE on Dec 9, 1966, states that lions are a frequent prey of crocodiles in Okavango swamps:  *This image is copyright of its original author https://books.google.ru/books?id=BlMEAAA...20&f=false This makes sense, since in the swamps of the Okavango Delta, lions can live in almost the same conditions as the tigers in the Sundarbans. An unusual case described in an old book "The Baganda: An Account of Their Native Customs and Beliefs":  *This image is copyright of its original author https://books.google.ru/books?id=Eu-wAAA...edir_esc=y Old observation published in The Southeast Missourian, nov 23, 1936:  *This image is copyright of its original author https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...2533&hl=ru This observation, published in The Age on Sep 18, 1897, is unusual in that it describes how a crocodile caught a lion on land. Moreover, in a fairly realistic context:  *This image is copyright of its original author https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...8558&hl=ru A recent observation of a lioness falling in the water and being taken by a crocodile:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Quote:These pictures were taken on game drive (at a distance), and are not for the sensitive. Mostly what we see is beautiful and or exciting; but there's no avoiding the reality of nature, it is honest and often brutal. One animal's mistake, is another's desperately needed meal. On this occasion, a lioness left her four cubs behind and put aside her feline dislike of water to cross the weir near Lower Sabi in the Kruger Park. On her return, she broke into a run and missed her footing, getting swept into the Sabi River, and the waiting jaws of a crocodile. We believe that the cubs are now being reared by another female from the pride. Thank you very much to Joey Vermeulen for the pics.  *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.facebook.com/RhinoPost/posts...4007955400 Account by Robert E. Coleman published in book "Conflicts in Nature" how a 1200 pound crocodile killed a male lion: https://books.google.ru/books?id=L8l1uThXdSoC&q Account from the book "Among animals of Africa", 1970:  *This image is copyright of its original author 12 ft Nile crocodile killed an adult male lion, from the book "Animals in Their Places: Tales from the Natural World", 1987: Quote:The year before a large and aggressive male had ruled the pride, but he had fallen ill with a parasite infestation and the sicker he had gotten the less alert he had become. One evening, just at dusk, he had been down on the sand flats lapping water from one of the streams that marked the course of the parent river. He had died an unlikely death, held underwater in the jaws of a twelve-foot Nile crocodile.https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&id=l...+crocodile Locals report that crocodiles kill lions. Anecdotal report from "Drum: A Magazine of Africa for Africa. African Drum Publications", 1996: Quote:..."What do Nile crocodiles eat?" I asked. "Nile crocodiles prey mainly on wildebeest, gazelles, buffalo, wild dogs and lions that come to the water to drink...https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&id=T...+and+lions David Paynter and Wilf Nussey in book "Kruger: portrait of a national park" (1986) mention that Nile crocodiles kill fully grown male lions: Quote:A crocodile dragging an antelope into the water may be a grim sight but the crocodile is fulfilling a purely natural need - to ... Crocodiles have been seen dragging full-grown buffalo bulls and even male lions to a watery death - not surprising...https://books.google.ru/books?id=w8cPAQA...NyCh1RXAVp An unusual account, described in book "Animal facts and feats" by Gerald L. Wood:  *This image is copyright of its original author ...their balance lost, fell into the river, which seemed suddenly to become alive with great jaws. https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&id=H...great+jaws Another mention of this observation: Quote:There's a well-authenticated story of a crocodile which knocked three drinking lions into a river with one sweep of its tail-and the rest of the crocs made short work of them!https://books.google.ru/books?id=HJE_AAA...ByCh0KYABq Guggisberg in his book "Crocodiles: Their Natural History, Folklore and Conservation" also describes the discovery of lion's claws in the stomach of a crocodile. Some additional photos have been posted in this thread by other users. So I would not say that crocodiles rarely kill lions, there are also many old accounts of crocodiles killing tigers. Perhaps in the past, when there were more lions and tigers, this happened more often than now, as many old accounts show. Nowadays, there are many cases of crocodile predation on leopards, which are the most common and numerous big cats. |
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