What happened to this lion?

[FullCryHounds]

This is the Tom that we chased into the mineshaft in March. I just finished cleaning the skull with the beetles and a couple of acetone baths then whitening. You can see a very serious wound that broke the bone under his eye socket. It is completely healed but it sure must have hurt when it happened. Not sure what could have caused it, maybe another Tom bit him? What else could have caused this?

[FullCryHounds]

Another angle.

[liontracker]

Biting an antlered Bull elk by the back of the neck, instead of the throat, and got crushed by the antlers when the bull threw his head back, like a fulcrum? I have seen skulls that were crushed dead center between the lions eyes as well. I bet there is a serious learning curve for the lions, when it comes to killing antlered bulls.

[Mike Leonard]

Could be an antlered bull but an adult lion seldom makes a mistake on a big bull and goes for the neck. Most of the adult lion kills on bigger bull elk or cows for that matter to me seem to have been a matter of a downhill attack with much more emphasis on the nose area and bringing the head sharply back around much as you have seen in so many old time western movies when they made their horses fall over. The forward momentum and the instant loss of balance as the head is jerked back sideways causes them to slam to the ground. many times their necks are broken by the initial fall. If not with that steer wrestler's grip still bending the noise and neck back shaply the bite is placed on the trachea and it is pinched off. It a matter of seconds the animal loses air to the brain and the job becomes easier after than. Lions can and do kill adult moose as well.


Not sure on that eye socket Deano but my two guesses would be first a near fatal clamp bite by another tom lion. Second a smashing front leg strike after a foiled attempt at killing a sassy momma elk.


Here is a point of interest: Most often we think of the lion biting down on the wind-pipe of it;'s prey with it's sharp teeth. In reality if you will not the tooth spacking of the cougar you will note a gap behind the major canines perfectly fashioned on both sides to go over and then compress the trached completly together.This space does not have a sharp point but seems to seal off very effectively. This explains why many times up post mortem of kills they statement is made. It appears the prey was stangled to death but there were no apparent bite marks on the windpipe itself.

[Big Mike]

My guess would be a kick as well. Could be another tom too who knows.

I saw where a lion had killed a full grown Oryx. It was in the bottom of an wide arroyo about 30-40 yards across. In about a 30 yard circle every inch of dirt was turned up in what looked like one hell of a fight scene. The lion finally got it done by what looked like sufficating by cruching the nose. All the bull elk kills ive found were killed the same way. Oryx's neck and spine are placed a little diferent from american ungulates which makes them next to impossible for a lion to kill from the top. Thus they have learned to kill from the nose or underneath

Looked like that lion learned in the process. I bet the lion had a few battle wounds from that fight!

[George Streepy]

I would put my money on another lion. Those cats live a tough life and most aren't afraid to try to take down something there size or larger. I am sure sure an elk or even a deer could be quite a handful to wrestle down. Antlers, hooves, or an elk rolling over onto a cougar during the take down could be pretty hazardous. But from what I understand the most dangerous thing in a cougars life is a more mature tom.

[krk hunting]

That is funny you ask this question I have been pondering the same thing for the last couple of weeks. Myself and a good friend caught a Tom the last day of lion season this year (5/31/10) and he had looked like he had been kicked in the face by an elk. The whole left side of his face was crushed and he was blind in that eye.



He had a scar from the top of his forehead to the middle of the bridge of his nose.His tongue was split like a snakes tongue and his upper lip looked like he had a hair lip.Most all of his teeth were missing on that left side and only nubs on the other they were worn down so far and busted off.



He was in very poor condition. (The game and fish aged him at 10 plus years of age.) I decided to let my 14yr old harvest this Tom. I do not think he would have made it through the summer. The dogs did a wonderful job pecking this track out. We started the dogs on this track at 1:30pm about 90 degrees ( i was a little Leary) After about an hour of working their hearts out they had only moved the track about 80yrds. Ken walked back to the truck and got a 3 gallon jug of water and we watered them and cooled them down the best we could. I was ready to pull them, but they didnt want to quit, they knew they could put the hammer on this old boy. So we let them go for about another 1 1/2 hrs and they had moved it another 250yrds to the base of the north slope of the mountain, by this time they were walking out the track pretty good. ( those of you that have hunted in the AZ desert before know how hard it is to help out the dogs) The ground is so hard and laden with rock you cant see a track on the ground very often. As they reached the top of the mountain (4 hrs into the track) it really started to freshen up, they rolled over the hill and in to the bottom of the next canyon and started down the bottom of the wash and back toward the truck and ended up treed 800yrds from a road. (almost a complete circle)After knocking this Tom out and taking all the pictures and giving the dogs plenty of time and water to cool off. Skyler said "I can pack him out Dad" threw him over his shoulders and he didn't stop till he hit the road. Talk about a proud Father to see his son turning into a man.

[liontracker]

Also could have happened, if the side of the lions head hit a rock, when the prey hit the ground?

[B/T]

Also could have happened, if the side of the lions head hit a rock, when the prey hit the ground?

I was thinking something similar to this as well, or the kick of a hoof.
Ive seen skulls were the arh around the socket has been broken and fused back together a few times.

[007pennpal]

Wow! That lion looks like it got hit by a truck. All the wounds seem to be on one side. Do you guys think a lion can separate the bones on the spine of deer and elk? Or even bite their teeth into the spinal cord causing death? Does their mouth open wide enough for this considering the amount of meat on an elks neck?
Sean

[southwestwalkers]

woow... I say antlers

[krk hunting]

I dont think it was antlers, this lion was caught the last day of may, the injury looks to be only a couple weeks old at the most and all the hard horned antlers are shed at this time and the new growth is still way to small and plyable to cause this type of damage. That is another reason it leads me to think it may be a hooved animal.


Kevin