Prey defeating predators

[Infinity Blade]

Did she put the tip of the crocodile's tail in her mouth?? Wtf???

Am I right in thinking she basically just crushed the croc with her head and feet? That's what it looked most like to me.

[Supercommunist]

www.reddit.com/r/HardcoreNature/comments/pf0hgq/buffalo_herd_return_to_defend_one_of_their_own/

[Infinity Blade]

Someone on Discord shared this recent record of a mountain goat killing a female grizzly bear.

Parks Canada wildlife officials say a forensic necropsy determined the 70-kilogram female grizzly bear had been killed by a mountain goat that delivered fatal blows to both of the bear’s armpits and beneath its neck.

www.stalberttoday.ca/beyond-local/mountain-goat-kills-attacking-grizzly-bear-4342439

[Supercommunist]

^My knee jerk reaction was that the goat just headbutted the bear off the cliff like some accounts of bighorns killing cougars, but it sounds like that goat just straight up shanked it.

www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/hunting/2009/05/death-dive/

Lion that got gored by an oryx:



ewasolions.org/treating-a-lion-injured-by-an-oryx/

[Infinity Blade]

Mountain goat skulls are fragile, they certainly aren't built for headbutting like sheep. They fight by stabbing each other with short, dagger-like horns, a primitive, but lethal method among bovids. It makes sense a mountain goat would try to kill its predator by stabbing it, while a bighorn would ram it off a cliff.

That cougar-bighorn interaction was brutal, though. Holy shit.

[Infinity Blade]

Warthogs can and have been killed by leopards, but sometimes they can best their predators too (source).

[Supercommunist]

^On a similar note, leopard that was apparently wounded by a warthog

www.reddit.com/r/HardcoreNature/comments/faj4dz/male_leopard_badly_gashed_by_a_warthog/

And a brief skirmish:



Wild pigs are deffo some of the more formidable herbivores and I think I'd favor them over a lot of carnivores even on a pound for pound basis.

[Infinity Blade]

I guess I might as well post stuff with wild boars too.


Source

Possible instance of a tiger being killed by a wild boar.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/63590359.cms#%3A~%3Atext%3DAn%20adult%20tiger%20has%20been%2Cto%20nine%20in%20four%20months.%26text%3DInitially%2C%20forest%20officials%20suspected%20the%2Cevidence%20was%20found%20during%20autopsy?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

And an instance where both killed each other.
www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/in-focus/article/prey-kills-predator-in-kaziranga-before-dying-wild-boar-inflicts-fatal-injuries-on-royal-bengal-tiger/649037

I think big cats and bears would win over suids at parity, but with say, canids, it would be more debatable.

[Supercommunist]

I think big cats and bears would win over suids at parity, but with say, canids, it would be more debatable.

My thoughts on bear and big cats are the same. I think that a hypothetical adult big cat that had no experience hunting boar would have a very risk of receiving serious to fatal wounds if they attacked a boar in a frontal engagement. I strongly a favor a boar over a similar sized wolf given that boars and other suids have been known to kill similar sized big cats, while I can't imagine many instances of a lone wolf managing to kill a healthy and similar sized cougar or leopard.

[Supercommunist]

[Supercommunist]

[Supercommunist]

[Supercommunist]

Oldie but goldie: Hippo bites lioness:

[Infinity Blade]

Jun 5, 2021 16:47:57 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

A subadult female jaguar was once killed by collared peccaries (Scognamillo et al., 2003).

Collared peccary and capybara are group-living species. It is recognized that preying on group-living species may result in higher risk of injury to the predator (Sunquist & Sunquist, 1989; Huggard, 1993) leading the predators to avoid these species. An example of this risk is the fact that a sub-adult female jaguar (JF3) was killed by collared peccaries. However, the high association of capybara with water holes and collared peccary with particular patches (Polisar, 2000) seems to increase their detection and vulnerability to being selected by jaguars. The selectivity for these two prey species suggests that jaguars are making foraging decisions on the basis of energy gain and not on injury risk (Sunquist & Sunquist, 1989; Huggard, 1993; Scheel, 1993). The low density of white-lipped peccary (see Polisar, 2000) may be contributing to the difference in the level of predation upon this species.

I found this recent paper documenting white-lipped peccaries mobbing jaguars. This provides empirical evidence of the behavior between the two species (Rampim et al., 2020). One very interesting thing it says is this.

At least three historical anecdotes exist of jaguars pursued and killed by herds of peccaries (Perry 1970).

So I went to search for this book (called The World of the Jaguar), and sure enough, it's available on Internet Archive->. Lo and behold, I found the three accounts.





If these accounts are to be taken as true (one of them is from the 19th century), then it looks like they come at a significant cost to the peccaries themselves (several of them tend to die by the jaguar's hand). Still, the fact that they can kill jaguars in groups is astounding.

Another interesting excerpt highlighting the dangers of peccaries and adaptations for hunting them (Polisar et al., 2003).

Collared peccary canines approach those of a jaguar in size, and are sharper. Both peccary species rely on groups for vigilance and defense. In Hato Piñero average jaguar weights were 1.9 times that of puma, a factor reflected in the jaguar’s heavier use of large bodied risky prey.

[Supercommunist]