![]() Rebirth or nothingness, heaven or hell - he didn’t really care which.īut as it turned out that death was a cave in Hueco Mundo. Defeat aside, he was curious about what came after life as a Hollow. Stagnant and a bit dank, more like, but it was air.Ī damn shame. While pangolin scales clearly hold up against lion attacks rather well, there’s one predator the little tanks haven’t evolved a defense against-us. Yammy honestly hadn't expected to wake up and take in fresh air ever again.īut even then, maybe fresh was a bit of a stretch. “I think the young lion wanted to try his luck.” Pangolins in peril “I spend hours and hours in the bush following lions and documenting prey selection and hunting behavior, but have never seen a lion hunting a pangolin before,” says Mweetwa. Thandiwe Mweetwa, a National Geographic Society Explorer and wildlife biologist with the Zambian Carnivore Programme, called the video a remarkable sighting. “The scales offer good protection, and pangolins will frequently leave an interaction with lions unharmed,” says Challender. Photograph by John Eastcott and Yva Momatiuk ![]() Learn how you can help save these animals. National Geographic is working to avert the extinction of lions, cheetahs, and other big cats with the Big Cats Initiative, a comprehensive program that supports innovative projects. Lions there, which number fewer than 150, are under imminent threat of extinction from Maasai herdsmen thought to be retaliating against prides who prey on their cattle. But nowhere is their condition as perilous as in Kenyan Maasailand, where this large male was photographed. Lions are threatened throughout most of their African range. ( Read how Indian pangolins are dwindling due to poaching.) However there is evidence that Asiatic lions will sometimes try to prey upon Indian pangolins in Gir National Park, India. Pangolins are especially hard to see in part because their populations are naturally low, notes Dan Challender, chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Pangolin Specialist Group.ĭue to this rarity, Challender says it’s unknown how frequently lions and pangolins interact. ![]() “That coupled with a pride of lions in the Mara is a once in a lifetime sighting,” he says. And an interaction between a lion and a pangolin? No one sees that. A rare encounterĭicks has been a professional guide for a decade and says he’s only seen pangolins in the wild eight times. Pangolin pups, whose scales have not yet hardened, are especially vulnerable. While this particular lion gave up after rolling the Temminck's ground pangolin around for a while with its paws, Dicks says the predators have been known to get the better of their prey on occasion. “That, coupled with the rain that night, made the surface far too slippery for the lions to actually do any damage.” “When curled, there really is nowhere that the lions can get purchase with their teeth,” says Tristan Dicks, who discovered the duo with a spotlight. All it has to do is curl up into a tiny, impenetrable ball.Īnd this is exactly what a guide with Safari Live witnessed earlier this month during a nighttime drive through Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. ![]() When a large predator comes calling, a pangolin need not run or try to fight back. Though these creatures weigh no more than 10 pounds, they are covered from head to tail in a natural armor-a network of overlapping scales made of a tough protein called keratin. With four-inch canines and a jaw capable of generating 4,450 newtons of force, lion bites are something most animals want to avoid.īut pangolins are not most animals.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |