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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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 (08-15-2020, 04:07 PM)johnny rex Wrote:(08-15-2020, 01:55 PM)Bitishannah Wrote:(08-15-2020, 07:22 AM)Balam Wrote: Jaguar predation on Morelet's crocodile in Mexico https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...-pkqz5tcIZ Kleptoparasitism by Morelets croc on jaguar kill. So this isn't one sided as people assume. 
Jaguars as natural predators for sub-adult Orinoco crocodiles:
 *This image is copyright of its original author @epaiva, you may be interested in this "Within sub-adults, Gumilla (1791) and Godshalk and Sosa (1978) site the jaguar and anaconda as their predators. Cannibalism in crocodiles has been mentioned by Antelo (2008) by localizing the signal from the radio emissions carried by a sub-adult inside the belly of an adult female..."  *This image is copyright of its original author It makes sense for jaguars and anacondas to prey on sub-adult specimens of similar sizes to common caiman, maybe a little bit bigger, but the size range of crocodiles that may fall prey to jaguars is unknown due to lack of data and a reduced population that keeps us from studying their interactions in more details, sub-adults in the study, however, are considered to measure between 0.6 to 2.5 meters. The same paper mentions three reports of crocodiles from the 20th and 19th centuries which measured 5.8, 6.78, and 6.96 meters in length respectively. Full study in Spanish: https://www.researchgate.net/publication...ntermedius
African Dwarf Crocodiles (Osteolaemus tetraspis) was found in Leopard diet.
 *This image is copyright of its original author source: Henschel et. al. 2005. Leopard food habits in the Lope National Park, Gabon, Central Africa  (08-15-2020, 09:21 PM)Balam Wrote: Jaguars as natural predators for sub-adult Orinoco crocodiles:@Balam Very valuable information, thanks for sharing 
I just come to discover this video on Youtube, a male lion coming to steal a wildbeest killed by a big croc...
Croc and lion tug-of-war for the spoils of a wildebeest. It was thought the croc killed the wildebeest and the lion came to steal. The lion is known as Longface. I have no idea the name of the croc! Footage courtesy of WildEarth and you can watch the full safari here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btgUq... http://www.wildearth.tv
Lion and crocodile battle over a hippo carcass
 *This image is copyright of its original author With her ears dropped back and her tail waving side to side, she charges at the crocodile.  *This image is copyright of its original author And with his mouth open, the crocodile tries to scare the lioness, but she stands her ground.  *This image is copyright of its original author She retaliates by sinking her teeth into the crocodile’s nose.  *This image is copyright of its original author The crocodile tries to break free by spinning around but ultimately is forced to give in.  *This image is copyright of its original author The lioness then pulls the hefty hippo carcass fully out of the water and into the bush.  *This image is copyright of its original author
Lion kills Crocodile in Kirawara.
Quote: wrote:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author After the fight, two lions devour the Croc.  *This image is copyright of its original author https://web.archive.org/web/20130901051723/http://www.theserenaexperience.com/showdown/
Lions, Leopards and Elephants have killed Crocodiles on land.
 *This image is copyright of its original author A Leopard killed a Crocodile, possibly a small adult female, when it was basking on land.  *This image is copyright of its original author Lion killed a Crocodile that was measured to be 11 foot 7 inches, or 3.53 meters.  *This image is copyright of its original author source: Cott, H.B. 1961. Scientific results of an inquiry into the ecology and economic status of the Nile Crocodile (Crocodilus niloticus) in Uganda and Northern Rhodesia The Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. 29(4): 211–356 
Data on interactions between Bengal tigers and saltwater crocodiles in Sundarban:
 *This image is copyright of its original author The swimming abilities of tigers are quite surprising. https://www.academia.edu/8062425/Ecology...Sundarbans Here are more details about the incident in which an adult tigress was killed by a 14-foot saltwater crocodile in Sundarban:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author http://inet.vidyasagar.ac.in:8080/jspui/...t_IJBS.pdf And from an older publication from P.K. Pandit:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author http://www.fao.org/3/a-am998e.pdf (08-15-2020, 08:52 PM)Bitishannah Wrote: Kleptoparasitism by Morelets croc on jaguar kill.Here is a detailed description of this observation:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author However, Morelet's crocodiles are not only able to take prey from jaguars at the water's edge. Here is a recent observation of an adult Morelet's crocodile preying on a young jaguar in Belize: Quote:Cancun.- The President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, published on his Twitter account a video in which a crocodile chases and reaches a jaguar in the Cobá lagoon.https://twitter.com/i/status/1233943046892462080 Marisa Tellez from CSG also knows about two similar observations:  *This image is copyright of its original author https://www.facebook.com/groups/14776098...6579923622
Tigress Ridhima is killing a wild boar, and a mugger crocodile wants its share!
(10-18-2020, 02:42 PM)TheSmok Wrote: Data on interactions between Bengal tigers and saltwater crocodiles in Sundarban: I posted that same source last August. So this same case comes up once a year then. I think, that this has been many times here too in different threads so in that way not so interesting to old posters maybe. But what makes it interesting is, that even though this is over a decade old case, it seems to be only really confirmed case known in which a saltwater crocodile has killed a tiger. Naturally environment is what it is, so quite difficult to know how many crocodiles tigers kill there and how many vice versa. Naturally from Africa it´s well known, that lions kill crocodiles every now and then and some lions are even crocodile killer specialists. If anything can be concluded based on it, I would assume that tigers kill crocodiles too more often than some rare reports tell. Difficult to imagine, that tigress Machli would be only tiger noticing reliable easy prey, especially when on land or shallow water. This is what I think after trying to find out a bit more about interactions between big cats and crocodiles. For sure crocodiles have their moments, but known cases seem to back up more it, that more often big cats are the ones having a meal. (10-18-2020, 03:19 PM)Shadow Wrote: I posted that same source last August. So this same case comes up once a year then. I think, that this has been many times here too in different threads so in that way not so interesting to old posters maybe. But what makes it interesting is, that even though this is over a decade old case, it seems to be only really confirmed case known in which a saltwater crocodile has killed a tiger. Naturally environment is what it is, so quite difficult to know how many crocodiles tigers kill there and how many vice versa. It is not surprising that the interaction between tigers and saltwater crocodiles in Sundarban is rare nowadays. There are only about 140 crocodiles in Bangladesh Sundarbans - http://www.zsbd.org.bd/pdf_journal/04_Dr_Aziz_USA.pdf and about 88 tigers - https://thelogicalindian.com/environment/tigers-sundarbans-96-21005, which makes their population density extremely low (about 0.023 and 0.015 individuals per square kilometer, respectively, if the Bangladesh Sundarban forest area is 6000 square kilometerss). However, tigers exhibit avoidance behavior towards basking areas of crocodiles, which may mean that even with low population density crocodiles pose a real threat to tigers in the mangrove habitat, where big cats are frequently forced to swim. There are numerous reports of interactions between crocodiles and tigers in Sundarbans, published before the foundation of Sundarbans National Park (e.g. accounts, described by Robert Quinton). They should be taken with some scientific skepticism, but at least show that with the larger population density, interactions between crocodiles and tigers were probably more common. I highly doubt that some lions actually become "specialized crocodile killers". At least this has not been confirmed by any dietary study. In the only study where Nile crocodiles were recorded in the diet of lions, they had a low Jacobs index (https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/91/5/1280/903109). But it's not surprising to me if lions kill Nile crocodiles more often than vice versa, just because smaller crocodiles often leave the water for various reasons (to scavenge lion kills, due to drought, being displaced by larger dominant crocodiles, etc.), while lions are relatively rare enter the water. Even larger crocodiles can be vulnerable if they are completely isolated from water, although I still do not know any cases of lions killing crocodiles over ~3.5 meters long, I heard a report that a clan of spotted hyenas killied a very large Nile crocodile when it was left without water for several months during a severe drought. Perhaps the same should be observed in the case with tigers and muggers (although tigers, unlike lions, always attack crocodiles alone, and therefore tigers are likely to usually take smaller crocs). Machli was not the only tiger known to attack some wandering muggers during droughts, at least her son Jhumaroo also eat some crocs along with Machli in 2004, 2005 and 2008. Also, there is one good video with detailed information about the legendary Machli's fight with 12-foot mugger (there are english subtitles): However, these assumptions do not have strong scientific statistical evidence, as they are based only on some fragmentary observations. It should be noted that big cat kills are much easier to find than crocodile kills (which are often stored underwater), which can create some bias. In addition, big cats (especially lions and tigers), are among the most frequently filmed and well-studied large carnivores in the world, as opposed to crocodiles. For example, we have almost no data on population structure, feeding ecology, spatial organization and etc for mugger crocodiles, while there are dozens of similar studies for tigers and leopards from the same areas. In any case, interactions between crocodiles and big cats are unlikely to play any important ecological role for both sides, with the exception of jaguars and caimans, where there are stable predator-prey reslonships. But caimans are ecologically very different from macropredatory crocodiles as well. 
I agree, I've not heard of any lions who've been specialized Croc killers. There is a reason Lions hate water and that is because of what lurks not because they get their mane wet.
And if Tigers had to deal with a larger Croc species like Niles then they'd hate water too. The Sunderban saltie population is minimal and they hardly ever cross paths with one another but I'm positive if they did it would be the Tiger who gets the worse of the interaction more often than not. |
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