Felids Interactions - Interspecific Conflicts

[Pantherinae]

(05-24-2018, 02:27 PM)Shir Babr Wrote:

(05-23-2018, 07:05 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: @Rishi Here is a single hyena fighting off a lone lioness. Again these are the Okavango hyenas. She looks as big as the lioness. I have no doubt hyenas here can reach weights around 100 kg's. You think this one would avoid a leopard?
I can't see any leopard kill a hyena like this. I'm not biased at all, but hyenas are just made of steel and when they grow this big they are a tough opponent even for a lioness. 

Looks like an impala carcass too me, and it looks big compared to the lioness, which would mean the lioness is not adult or is bellow average.
100 kg hyenas? What makes you so sure when 86 kg is the heaviest reliable weight?

That is a Lechwe/red waterbuck. And it's a male who can be twice the size (120 kg) of a male impala (60 kg). 
This lioness is absolutely an adult specimen, if it's not the biggest of lionesses, she doesn't seem too small either... 
I can't find any moderne or past measurements of hyenas from the Okavango delta. And hyenas are very variable in size across Africa, on the top of my head females in the east(Serengeti?) I think average at about 20 kg less than females from Krüger and Zambia. And I have never seen hyenas looking as big as these from Okavango.. never! And people that have seen dozens of lions across Africa all seem to state that Okavango does house the biggest lions, and these hyenas are challenging lions in a way I've never seen hyenas do before. 

You don't think an animal who weighs 86 kg's can grow 14 kg's heavier in a different place? I have no doubts about 300 kg+ Bengal tigers and 1000 kg+ Cape buffalos, but there aren't 100% reliable weights of that. 
A guy who lives where I have my cabin hunts foxes around usually 5-8 kg, some very large males 10 kg's, but one day he captured a fox on 13,7 kgs. That's almost twice the weight of the average foxes he hunted. So that big hyenas on 100 kg existing, I have no doubt. Especially those monster looking hyenas in the Okavango. Could I be wrong? Yes, but I'm confident enough to share the opinion, that those weights are possible there. 

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