ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[Wolverine]

(08-29-2018, 03:23 PM)Rishi Wrote: From contemporary accounts, water buffalo were the most feared animals of the forests they were found in, still are. Unlike the shy gaurs, they're aggressive & vindictive, known to chase down tigers trying to call it a day. 

Yes, I also think that wild buffaloes are harder to be killed than gaur because they are more organized, loyal to each other and have better group defense. If one of the buffaloes from the herd is attacked by tiger the others will help it, while I have doubts that gaurs will help to the victim so wholeheartly. 
A couple of years ago PC or Guate Joyra posted here comparable image of gaur and cape buffalo, No 45:
https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-all-abo...rus?page=3
This image was reposted in Russian-speaking web and cause some discussion. Somebody noticed that gaur despite being larger and more massive than the buffalo actually has much thinner neck and throat, especially in the aria of the first vertebreas close to skull. Tiger if open widely his mouth is capable to strangulate by throat bite an adult female or subadult male gaurs, and they are quite helpless as we can see from this video:

If that animal on the video was a female cape buffalo and the predator was a lion probably that cat would try to strangulate it by swallowing the nose, because buffaloes have wider and thicker neck and throat than gaurs.
So probably from all big herbivores the gaur is the only one which can be strangulated by classical throat bite. Despite his massive muscular body gaur has a weak point - this creauture is created to be hunted by predators.
Of course this is possible only in case of unexpected attack, if gaur knows about the presence of a tiger and turn face to face toward him most probably tiger will withdraw from attack. Tiger have relatively larger brain than lion and is capable of "revenge" behavior. If during the struggle with gaur the tiger is slightly wounded sometimes he became determinated to kill the animal at "any coast", only because the herbivore cause him some pain or resistance. So in such cases the cat stuck to herbivore for several days and start hunting it down and weakining by prolonged hamstringing. Reply