- Dinner party held by the edge of the Nile in Zambia gets an unwanted, crafty guest
By Eddie Wrenn
PUBLISHED: 09:11 GMT, 19 October 2012 | UPDATED: 12:19 GMT, 19 October 2012
Have you ever had a lovely dinner party ruined when an unwanted, uninvited dinner guest turns up?
Well, these angry lions have – they were enjoying a delicious meal of antelope steak on the banks of a river in Zambia when, all of a sudden, a crocodile turned up and tried to sneak a bite to eat.
The lions are captured with an all-too-human stunned look of surprise on their faces when they look up from their feast and find a crafty additional mouth at the table.
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Double take: The lions look by turns angry, shocked and bemused by their unexpected dinner guest – who just wanted a helping of antelope to himselfThe fearless
Nile crocodile – known as charmingly enough as ‘Fred’ to residents of South Luangwa, Zambia – risked taking on two fearsome adult females who were feeding their cubs.
But as this remarkable video and pictures show Fred had no qualms about wandering over to try his luck and steal a chunk of an impala – an African antelope – the lionesses had just killed.
It takes the big cats a few moments to realise Fred is coming towards them and at one stage it looks like he might succeed as he opens his massive jaws.
On the approach: The crafty and apparently fearless three-metre crocodile makes the sneaky crawl to the dinner table
Closer still: You can almost feel the crocodile’s hunger as he opens his jaws wide and looks at the scene
You can see how engrossed they are: There’s almost no room at the table as the lions devour their prey – but the croc will find a way
The lion cubs wisely scatter to avoid themselves becoming a meal, and for a second it looks like Fred has the upper hand.
But the huge lioness mothers decide enough is enough and spurred on, both by anger at the intruder and the instinct to protect their young, they begin to claw and bite Fred until he decides it’s time to go.
Almost as quickly as it started the titanic struggle is over, and Fred runs through the grass back to the safety of the river at the South Luangwa, Zambia.
Get out of here! The lions are stunned by the sneak attack, and with a roar they tell the crocodile to back off – and the
petty thief makes a break for it
‘And don’t come back!’: The mood of the meal is ruined, with the lioness staring at the interloper who ruined their meal
Not happy: The lions make sure the crocodile – known as Fred – does not make another attempt, walking him away from the tablePhotographer and bushcamp manager Oli Dreike, 34, from The Bushcamp Company, was just 20 metres away in his tent when the action unfolded.
He said: ‘As the Luangwa Valley heats up towards the end of September it’s best to wake up early if you want get things done and avoid the heat of the day.
‘What I was not expecting, as I woke up at 5.30am that morning, was to witness a clash of the titans metres away from my tent.
‘I just washing my face, when the waiter came rushing over to my tent calling ‘bwana, bwana come quick if you want to see the lions hunting.
‘I pulled on some clothes and dashed over to the dining area, where he had been preparing breakfast, to see a lioness and three cubs out on the plain in front of camp.’
Oli said the lion pride were well-known to local conservation researchers the Zambia Carnivore Programme and were lead by a male lion dubbed ‘Scarface’ and a scar on his face he ironically received in a crocodile attack.
And just to make sure, the lionness roars her disapproval: It looks like the aggressive animals took a few seconds to come to their senses following the rude interruption
Oli said: ‘I ran back to my tent to get my camera, to find one of the lionesses crouching in wait on the other side of a small, spring fed channel not 20 metres from my tent.
‘Having grabbed my camera and tripod, we both sat in wait, while a nearby group of impala started making alarm calls.
‘Then, suddenly out of the tall grass, came bounding her pride mate, sending the impala into a panic and one right into the claws of the other lioness, right in front of me.
‘The rest of the pride rushed in to start feeding on the impala, a small meal for seven hungry mouths.
‘But the cats were so engrossed in their meal, that it took them a while to realise that they had an uninvited table guest the huge crocodile that lives in the channel that runs through camp had smelt it’s opportunity and decided to try it’s luck at grabbing a piece of the action.
‘The lionesses seemed to be protecting the kill as well as their cubs, although the croc does seem to have gotten away with a small chunk of meat.
This battle of the titans was a very noisy affair, all going on some 15 metres away, with nothing between me and the action, but a narrow stream.
‘I could not believe what I had just seem, let alone been able to film and photograph it.’
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