Snapshot Serengeti Talk

Lion Preying on Hyena

  • Jinx by Jinx

    This was quite a capture -- both for the camera and the lion. Do lions often prey on hyenas?

    Posted

  • eleys by eleys

    I tried to find the entire story in pictures, but all I could find is that the area is super frequented by hyenas, and on that precise day a lion and a lioness paid a visit between 11am and 1pm. Then a hyena came back the same night for some reason.
    I had always thought that lions only killed hyenas that came too close when they were eating, but this time it looks to me that the lion deliberately came and killed a hyena just there...

    Posted

  • Jinx by Jinx

    Yeah, I figured there might be more images because it happened right in front of a camera but I didn't know how to find them. These images aren't in sequence like last season. Good job collecting them. It looks like the worst of it happened below the camera line and we just got to see the results. 😃 I still can't get over seeing that come up after classifying dozens of images of grass, gazelles and zebra on a quiet Sunday night, waiting for something more exciting. I thought the lion had a gazelle at first until I had a closer look.

    Posted

  • eleys by eleys

    You're lucky to have found it! I think I went through everything from ..l0 to ..zz and here are the best images that I found:

    Lion with hyena ASG00181sn (7mn before this one)
    Lion doing stuff on the ground ASG00181oa (6mn before)
    With hyena again ASG00181p7 (2mn after)
    Tired lion with bad hair: ASG00181qu (5mn after)
    Lioness pays a visit ASG00181s5 (10mn after)

    Posted

  • areinders by areinders moderator

    Great job finding all these pictures, that is really dramatic.

    Posted

  • aliburchard by aliburchard scientist, translator

    You guys - this is INCREDIBLE. Lions do sometimes kill hyenas (and hyenas sometimes kill lions, if they outnumber them by a lot), but it's something we almost never see actually happen. Thank you all so much for pulling these photos together -- I'll try and go into the database and get the whole story, and turn them into a time-laps video for the next blog. THIS IS SO COOL!!!!!!

    Posted

  • craigpacker by craigpacker scientist

    Yes, great job everyone! It's interesting, too, that in most cases it's the MALE lions that kill the hyenas. Dad can be rather useful around the house....

    Posted

  • Jinx by Jinx

    I can't wait to see the blog post about this, especially a time lapse of the images.

    Posted