Post by Hardcastle on Jul 17, 2023 23:20:13 GMT
Generally speaking I think brown, striped and spotted hyena all- pretty much equally, and fairly easily- bully and displace leopards, BUT the exception is an experienced mature male with a bad attitude. They often develop a certain macho confidence that is very contrary to how leopards generally behave. These leopards are spaced out like feudal "lords" and most leopards a hyena will encounter won't be one of those. So you can see even in that video the brown hyena had no doubt whatsoever the leopard would just flee like normal, it had full unquestioning confidence, and then it was surprised when the leopard didn't budge and fought back. Usually that works for brown and striped and spotted hyenas, and they usually just take kills off leopards with no resistance.
Again, macho mature males are kind of their own thing. It is interesting to note that hunters in the 1800s were genuinely confused and really did think they were a different animal. A more "rare", much larger and much more dangerous animal than a mere "leopard", which they considered barely worth talking about. Somewhere between leopard and tiger, and in some ways more nasty than tigers, is a common testimony you get from explorers and hunters in colonial times.
It's kind of clues spread over fairly long passages where it becomes clear these guys are very confused and unsure about certain zoological details. He talks about how some people even think cheetahs and leopards are the same thing (which was actually a very common perception among early colonial explorers), but then he is "smart" because as an avid outdoor sportsmen he understands they can be divided into cheetahs, leopards and panthers. And btw the "panthers" aren't the black ones, he frequently describes panthers as yellow or orange. The panthers, in his mind, are the big ones. Leopards are around 5'4" to 5'9" long, and Panthers are well over 6 feet long, and just tremendously more formidable and cunning and bold. He gets very confused and talks about male leopards and female panthers, but still it is kind of clear that he generally is being confused by the sexual dimorphism of leopards.
It's a bit long but I think if you read these two chapters (from George P Sanderson's "Thirteen years among the wild beasts of India") you'll see what I mean -
In this part he talks about hunting a "panther and two leopards" in one area on the same day. He thinks it is a male panther, and then a breeding pair of leopards (male and female). I think it's actually obvious that it is a breeding pair of leopards and their male cub. He thinks the male cub is a male leopard, and the mature male leopard is just a totally different animal (a "panther") because it is so different (again sorry for the length, I just can't quite narrow down the exact part that shows what I mean, its clues throughout a chapter).
By the way the macho attitude isn't related to size at all actually, it's related to the individual animal, any cornered leopard with no other choice will turn out extremely aggressive and will fight back for its defence. Some, as already specified, would even turn on the offense and probably even start the fight.
I'm sure it is mostly individual variation, but the large mature males are certainly more likely to develop this special confidence (even "swagger") I'm talking about which I believe is rare among leopards as a whole and indeed felines or wild predators in general.
