Isolated Buffalo Had No Chance After It Finds Itself Totally Surrounded by Lions

This magnificent lion pride has managed to find an isolated buffalo. When these herbivores are with their herd they are extremely difficult to hunt because they back each other up! When they are on their own, however, a pack of large lions does stand a chance of dragging them to the floor and overpowering them. We learn from the video notes that this is the Rongai pride in Africa and that the male lion in the hunt is called Olonkera. As the clip below shows, when lions work as a team there are very few animals that can stand up to them.

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How Do Lions Normally Hunt?

Lions are social animals that live in groups called prides. These are female-dominated groups consisting of genetically related females and their offspring. There can be one or more males associated with the pride and they have the mating rights to all the females.

Lions can hunt on their own, but they have more success when they hunt together as we see here. They hunt their prey by stalking them although that part of the sequence has already been completed before this footage starts. When a lion attacks large prey, they leap onto the rump or shoulders grabbing at the stricken animal with their claws. They hold on very tightly whilst attempting to drag the prey to the ground. As you can see in this clip, it is not easy to drag the buffalo down. We also see the typical lion tactic of grabbing the prey by the throat. They do this to strangle or suffocate the animal by crushing its trachea (windpipe). Lions can hold on like this for as long as 10 minutes!

How Do Lions Feed?

Once this buffalo has been killed, the feeding will begin but there is a pecking order. Adult male lions get to eat first. They can eat up to 88 pounds at a time and this can represent a quarter of their body weight. Next, the adult females will eat and they consume an average of 31 pounds of meat a day. Finally, the cubs will get to feed from the carcass.

Lions guard their carcasses especially if they cannot be consumed in a single meal. At other times, however, they leave the kill to be finished off by scavengers. Lions eat most of the carcass but they do not consume the digestive organs, horns, or teeth. You will often see lions heading for a drink after they have consumed a large kill like this one.