project your dream honeymoon . One might think transparent snowy curtain gently waste in the breeze on a veranda overlooking white flaxen beaches and turquoise waters .
If you’reTanner Harvey , though , you alternatively might be feasting your eyes on a cannibalistic leopard light high in a tree diagram in the Serengeti .
How amorous .
The Ph.D. bookman was honeymoon in Tanzania ’s Serengeti National Park in December . Just after cockcrow , the newlyweds exit their campsite in a grouping enlistment hop-skip to catch up with a nearby lion pride .
Upon turning around a rock and roll organisation , the group instead ran into a very different sort of cat . They point out a leopard gasp at the foot of a tree – abehaviortypical of the spot felid after making a saucy kill .
Scanning up the tree , the radical pick up another , deader Panthera pardus .
Harvey shared his story in an consultation withNational Geographic , and his guide told him the dead Panthera pardus was likely freshly killed and dragged into the tree by the other leopard to protect it from scavengers .
Overall , the male leopard spent around 90 arcminute on his cannibalistic buffet before climbing down the tree , grooming and sunning himself , and sauntering off to a nearby cave .
“ clock time vanish when you ’re watching a Panthera pardus eat another leopard , ” Harvey say .
It is rarified to stumble into a leopard - eating - leopard scene , but it ’s not unheard of . elder territorial cats have beenknown to killyounger encroaching felines to egest rival for both target and potential mates .
Rates ofinfanticidein male leopards are among the highest recorded , but scientists typically drop a line it off as sexual selection – reproducing with the mother of said young carnivore to make the leopard adaptation of the Genghis Khan dynasty .
But killing an animal of the same coinage for consumption is another level – and a rare one at that .
A1977 studydetails one cannibalistic account of an adult leopard who defended its prey from a younger female , killing and then consume her .
It should n’t come as much of a surprisal based on our knowledge of leopards and their opportunistic depredation strategies .
Still , the stack is weirdly unsettling .
[ H / T : National Geographic ]
