Felids Interactions - Interspecific Conflicts

[Shadow]

(01-24-2019, 12:45 PM)Spalea Wrote: IMO between captive felids anything can happen. In zoo we sometimes learn that a lioness kills a male lion, a leopard kills a tigress. So what ? What about their health, age, physical conditions (are they poorly fed, mistreated ?) ? We don't know but anything is possible. We just have the brute fact.

In wild, if a big felid wants to kill a smaller one (by a significant margin), the maximum that the latter could hope is to escape itself. Of course accident can happen, a bad fall for example. But I don't believe at all that the smaller cat could exclusively kill the big one. The big one could be wounded too, ( leopards for example could lacerate the opponent's face in a case of desperate attempt, thex excell at it), but killed in a furious fight ? No.

In this we disagree, because I believe, that what can happen in captivity can happen also in wildlife, what comes to outcome of some fight. But that doesn´t mean, that I would think it to be common thing to happen in wildlife. Leopards have been fighting back only in situations, where it has been only option, cornered or not  enough time and space to turn and run. Still escaping immediately when possible. But if cornered, like in that situation with 5 lionesses, if any animal would leap in that small space with that leopard, it would be a total mess and I personally don´t feel confident to say what outcome would be. I would give favor to bigger, but I wouldn´t be surprised if something else.

About that people can have their own opinions, but I have mine and there is no way, that someone could convince me that impossible ever for leopard to win that kind of situation. This is just how I see it based on many things. I just have seen too many "impossible things" to think otherwise :) As I said to pantherinae, I use words like highly unlikely, most probable not or very likely, most probable... so when I talk about leopards chances, I say, that it is most probable that leopard loses confrontations with tigers and lions, but in rare occasions it can have a chance. So when there is this one case with only a little information, I am curious, but I don´t see there anything what I would dare to call impossible.

And also, if two animals are found dead near each others, it doesn´t mean, that they would have died at same moment. One can been killed first there, then another one while badly injured moved some distance before laying down and maybe dead after some time, some hours. Sometimes "winner" is maybe never found depending of terrain and how motivated people are to track down possibly wounded animal.

I actually linked that story here to practice what Rishi told to me about linking and copying things here, I was curious to find more information about that case, but on the other hand maybe it was good coincidence to have some conversation :) Maybe now someone else is motivated to look that closer and finds something. Article was creating more questions than answering and naturally it is far from confirmed case. Reply