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

[Styx38]

(06-06-2015, 08:00 PM)faess Wrote:  
Its pretty  much a fact that Cougars  have killed bears and wolves a lot more than leopards kill other predators around the same size. If you look in one of the earlier pages of edge of extinction, you read a brief description of the Leopard being less confrontational than a Tiger.


This lion doesn’t run, instead kills, eats wolf
Wild-eyed research cat stripped lobo to the bone, researcher says.

This needs a slight update, but an adult Wolf was killed by a sub-adult female Leopard name Victoria.

"It is worth noting that the first release of leopards into their natural habitat took place in July 2016. New residents appeared on the territory of the Caucasus Reserve: two-year-old male Killy and three-year-old Victoria and Akhun. Each of them wore special radio collars, signals from which made it possible to monitor the movements and actions of big cats. During the year of their stay in the reserve, the leopards caught 15 deer, six rounds and a chamois, two roe deer, four wild boars, and Victoria managed to get even an adult wolf! [7] Unfortunately, after 62 weeks, a self-reset program is triggered in these collars, so today leopards are no longer under constant surveillance."

https://www.kp.ru/guide/peredneaziatskii-leopard.html


The sub-adult female Leopard weights in Iran  are 23-41.5 kg. There was even a separate adult female at 26 kg.

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... rentiation


The Wolf that was killed was either a Steppe Wolf, which is similar to a female sub-adult Leopard at 35-40 kg, or the Wolf was a bigger subspecies:


"As we can see from the table, the skulls of Caucasian wolves are basically similar in size to a wolf from Europe, but they are significantly inferior to the skulls of tundra wolves from Taimyr. Nevertheless, these indicators overlap among all the discussed subspecies. It should also be noted that the Caucasian subspecies of the wolf is still not well understood and differs (like the European one) in its large size variability. On the plains of Transcaucasia, wolves are slightly smaller than those living in the North Caucasus. Probably in the south (and also in the east) they mix with southern subspecies of wolves, such as Canis lupus campestris (the Caspian wolf, also called the Caucasian steppe wolf) and Canis lupus desertorum (desert wolf). In turn, in the north of the range, the Caucasian subspecies is closely adjacent to the nominative - Canis lupus lupus. Wolves of the Armenian Highlands, described as Canis lupus hajastanicus are somewhat larger than the flat ones and in size they correspond to the animals from the North Caucasus. Usually they write that the maximum weight of the Caucasian wolf is 45 kg, as an exception - up to 50 kg. However, animals of very large sizes are known from Georgia. So, one wolf, caught in the mountains in northwestern Georgia in 1999, had 81-82 cm at the withers. The body mass of such large specimens is clearly much higher than 50 kg and is at least 60 kg, and most likely slightly more. Judging by the tracks of wolves, larger specimens are also found in Georgia"


https://crazy-zoologist.livejournal.com/517773.html

So, a sub-adult Leopardess can also take on a carnivore (Eurasian/Steppe Wolf) equal to or larger than herself. Reply