There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
10-19-2020, 07:34 PM( This post was last modified: 10-19-2020, 07:35 PM by Shadow )
(10-19-2020, 12:28 PM)TheSmok Wrote:
(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.
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.
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.
Rangers sighting reported in an African Wild Life magazine in 1964:
Quote:CROCODILE GRABS LION.
Two Bantu Rangers on patrol saw four lions drinking in the Olifants River. On seeing them the lions immediately sprang up and the only lioness in the pride charged towards the Rangers. At that moment a large crocodile grabbed one of the young lions by the hind leg and dragged him into the water
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"):
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.
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 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:
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.
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.
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...
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...
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!
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.
I was in hurry earlier, but now when a bit more time, I have to say, that I find that "three lions at once" and then that 1897 story of a crocodiles and lion encounters something, what I have never taken too seriously. Just because when comparing those cases to modern ones and to filmed footage, not too realistic stories. Even though crocodiles are formidable. But in "good old days" some people seemed to like to write good stories, there are some others too. But naturally some lions have died because of crocodiles during time, claiming something else would be unrealistic. Still when reading some stories from past I have gotten some comical moments, when reading and thinking, that has this person writing been serious?
Crocodile and Big cats Interaction
