When the police discover the bodies of a slaughtered family living on a farm just outside of Amsterdam, they are clueless as to what happened. “Nothing in nature goes to waste,” Dollar says.The film stars Sophie van Winden, Julian Looman, Mark Frost, Reinus Krul, Theo Pont, Pieter Derks, and Victor Low. But what we’re seeing in this video-the lion’s done.
“Hyena are big, lions are big, they’re in competition for food sources on the landscape, there’s no question. “I don’t think that anyone is going to make the mistake of thinking that they’re cooperative species,” Dollar says. Additionally, hyenas have thick, robust teeth, perfect for crushing the bones that lions leave behind.īut seeing the hyenas benefit from the lion's hunt shouldn’t give the impression that hyenas and lions have a commensal relationship. What’s left is nothing notable for the lion, but perfect for the jaw musculature of hyenas, which is even stronger than that of lions. The lion has already eaten the nutrient-rich organs, like the liver and heart. We see the hyenas take it from a black-backed jackal.” We don’t see the hyenas take it from the lion. “It’s fully recognized that this lion, whatever he wants to claim ownership from, he gets. “We don’t see a lot of direct conflict here,” Dollar emphasizes. Once the lion returns, however, it has “more interest in the water than seeing that scrap that he’s already left.” The hyenas’ noise “piques the lion’s interest,” making it wonder if it might have left good food behind.
But when the lion sprints back, it isn’t scaring them away to reclaim its meal.
The hyenas then begin bickering among themselves, tumbling backwards into the water. “These little jackals aren’t going to eat anything near a lion, which would crush them in one fell swoop of a paw.” “There’s no way that black-backed jackal would have been on that scrap if the lion still wanted it,” Dollar says. When the hyenas take the kill for themselves, they’re actually swiping it from the jackal, not the lion-who isn’t visible in the frame when the black-backed jackal appears, meaning that he has already finished eating and wandered off. Watch closely around 18 seconds: when the hyenas grab the scraps, a black-backed jackal pops his head up from where he’s been enjoying the meal for himself. They later return and manage to carry it away without being caught.”īut though it may seem that the hyenas are grabbing the bones out from under the lion’s nose, it’s actually a case of typical leftover scavenging, according to conservation biologist Luke Dollar, who heads National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative.ĭollar says that what we’re watching isn’t a conflict at all-at least not between the lion and hyenas. In the first attempt, the lion gives chase, forcing them to abandon the carcass. The video’s caption describes the hyenas as “trying to steal the lion’s food.
After they fight amongst themselves over their find, the lion leaps back onto the scene, scattering them. Or so stereotypes would have us believe.Ī video taken May 2016 at Maasai Mara, Kenya opens with a male lion gnawing on the bones of its unlucky prey, before cutting to a group of hyenas swooping in and swiping the scraps. Lions and hyenas: relentless enemies on the African landscape.
0 kommentar(er)
