A forest official at the Gir Wildlife Sanctuary on Saturday stumbled upon a rare phenomenon. Generally known to predate upon big-sized herbivores, a pride of lions was seen trying to kill a scaly pangolin.
Sandeep Kumar, Deputy Conservator of Forests at the Sanctuary in Sasan Gir in Junagadh district, about 300 km from Vadodara, witnessed the scene when he was patrolling the area.
Talking to PTI over phone on Sunday, Mr. Kumar said: “A pride of five sub-adult lions was trying to predate upon an Indian pangolin yesterday [Saturday]. The pangolin, [in defence], curled itself [up] into an armoured ball, exhibiting enormous muscular power, which defies any ordinary attempt to unroll it.
“To me, it was for the first time I encountered such an amazing event of natural history, where a completely different prey was being attacked by the lions,” he said.
During the encounter, the lions repeatedly tried to unroll the pangolin, but it did not give up till the end, while hissing loudly — a sound it produces when under stress — Mr. Kumar said, adding the lions eventually gave up.
