In this unusual sighting, a Kruger guide found a lion eating a peculiar meal. For some reason, the predator struggled to move it into a favourable position.
Jean Graham of Discover Kruger submitted this unlikely footage. She filmed it while on a game drive in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
Eat, sleep, repeat
Joining the action in Jean’s video, we see what at first appears to be a fairly common sighting. While two male lions with bloated bellies rest on the right, a third is busy feeding.
Seeing three male lions together is not unusual. They routinely form coalitions, enabling them to control larger territories and bring down bigger prey. So what makes this sighting unusual, you may ask.
Backstory unknown
Subsequently, Jean zooms in on the feeding lion. To our surprise, we see that it is feeding on an elephant calf. As Jean said, “In all honesty, we are not too sure how the lions managed to get the baby elephant.”
She added, ” We are not sure if the calf was just found by the lions or if they miraculously took it down… There were no other elephants around, so this would be our best guess.”
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Unusual but not unheard of
Although rare, lions have been previously recorded hunting elephants in Kruger. That said, in Botswana, there are large prides that specialise in hunting elephants.
Regardless of how it got there, the calf is providing a welcome meal to the three males. Considering they can eat up to 40 kg of meat in a sitting, even a baby elephant won’t go that far.
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Feast & fast
After feeding on his belly, the lion stands up, tugging at the calf’s skin. However, he cannot get sufficient leverage to move it.
Consequently, he moves to a different position. It seems he has eaten all the meat he can reach and is trying to find more.
As he does, we get to see just how swollen his belly is. A lion’s diet consists of periods of gorging and fasting, with intervals of several days between meals.
To compensate for the long intervals between meals, lions spend up to 20 hours per day resting. By doing so, they conserve energy for when it is time to hunt again.
No luck there
After tugging repeatedly, the lion is no better off than when he got up. Pondering his next move, he chews on the calf’s thick hide.
He then turns his head, using specialised teeth in the back of the jaw to slice through the skin.
As the video comes to an end, it’s worth mentioning that if the lion wanted to move the carcass, it would be well within his ability. Just look at this video to see how powerful male lions really are.
