Nile crocodile ends up on a leopard’s menu in Zambia
Not too long ago, we were marvelling over some stellar snapshots of a jaguar rustlin’ and wrasslin’ up a caiman entrée in the Brazilian Pantanal; now we have equally impressive footage of an African leopard dispatching a Nile crocodile.
Photographer and safari guide Edward Selfe captured the event, which took place on a recent evening in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park.
“We found this large leopard resting on a fallen tree at dusk,” writes Selfe on his website. “He descended and called, starting to mark his territory. We followed for a while and then left him when he went to drink at the river. Returning soon after, we found him … dragging a carcass through the long grass.”
A few moments later, the photographer realised that the spotted cat’s prize was a small crocodile.
It’s not exactly a garden-variety leopard kill to witness, but it’s also not exactly shocking. Leopards are famously unfussy about food, with a diet that’s among the widest-ranging of any large carnivore. We’re talking fish and frogs all the way up to hoofed fare the size of eland and young buffalo. An incautious (maybe dozing) little crocodile along the river’s edge would be a prime target for the big cat family’s über-opportunist.
Leopards in Africa and Asia probably don’t eat crocodilians as frequently as some populations of jaguars, for which caimans may constitute major portions of their regular meal ticket. But Selfe’s sighting isn’t the first time the jaguar’s Old World lookalike cousin has been seen chowing down on scaly sustenance. Hal Brindley, for example, photographed a Kruger National Park leopard snatching a somewhat larger Nile croc right from the water and killing it on land.