15. A Rare Day at Kruger

Around sunrise on November 3rd, 2016 in Kruger National Park in South Africa a group of tourists on their trip around the nature preserve witnessed something absolutely out of the ordinary.

14. Hippo Sighting

During their cruise along the national park, they stumbled across an adult hippo walking along the roadside. Hippo are fairly common in South Africa and they are a protected species that the National Park Service looks after. But what happened next was something nobody in the caravan had ever seen before.

13. Lions Emerge

Suddenly, a pair of lions begins to emerge from the nearby bush. These predatory cats were clearly stalking the hippo as prey. With what seemed to be just the two of them, this wasn’t looking too good for the lions.

12. Untouchable

Hippo’s actually don’t fall prey to very many animals in South Africa. Their chubby and playful looks are very deceiving as hippos are actually considered one of the most deadly animals in South Africa. According to animal experts, an adult hippo is a huge, aggressive animal, and no animal ever attacks one or tries to eat one. It seems that it would be in the lions best interest to avoid the wild hippo but that’s not what happened next.

11. An Unequal Match

The young lion began to sink it’s front claws into the back of the hippo while another smaller lion walked alongside for back up. The family watched the scene in shock. The two lions were simply not enough to take on a hippo of this size. But then something surprising happened.

10. Hippo Under Attack

As the pair of lions continued to descend upon the hippo, the family saw that even more lions began to come out of the nearby brush area. This changed everything. According to animal experts hippos are rarely attacked by lions unless they are already wounded or sick, but when lions are in their pride form, they are able to take down very unusual prey. What the hippo did next caused the video to go viral.

9. Taking a Bite

The adult hippo in the midst of being attacked decided to chomp down on the hood of the Range Rover that was parked close by. To the families shock, there was a driver in the Range Rover who quickly became alerted to the large animal’s presence and began to put the car in reverse. The hippo with its jaw around the hood of the car, eventually lost grip as the car sped away. It was just the hippo and the entire pride of lions now.

8. Strange Behavior

The hippo began to walk across the road while being attacked. More lions from the pride continue to emerge from the brush opposite the hippo. Many experts after viewing this video believe that the hippo did not bite down on the Range Rover to attack it but rather to signal panic as it became aware that it was now under attack from an entire pride of lions. A few lions compared to an entire pride is quite a different situation for an adult hippo to be in.

7. To the River

The family then noticed that the direction the Hippo was heading in was back towards the river. If the hippo could manage to get into the water then the pride of lions would not stand a chance as the adult hippo is a far stronger swimmer than most cat species. But would the hippo make it to the river?

6. The Great Escape

The family momentarily lost sight of the hippo and the pride of lions so they decided to put their caravan in gear and head down towards the water to see if they could catch the hippo make its great escape.

5. The End is Near

Once at the river’s edge they spotted the hippo as well as the entire pride of lions. The hippo was not in great shape as it had a back full of deep wounds and scratch marks from the lions. The family soon realized that the end was near for the hippo if it could not reach the water in time.

4. The Winner

It soon became apparent that the pride of lions had succeeded and the hippo was down. The family recounts the experience by noting “Knowing that the hippo’s chances were now over they were no longer in a rush. We watched the exhausted lions for a while before driving off feeling very privileged. We returned later that afternoon to find the lions passed out and very full from their well-deserved meal.”

3. The Power of a Pride

The true strength of lions in pride form is something rarely seen by humans but it is unforgettable. “Lions can kill anything—there are famous areas in Africa where the prides are large and get used to taking down elephants. [But] it still is pretty rare” for the cats to take on hippos, said Luke Hunter, president of the wild cat conservation group Panthera.

2.Plant-Eating Predators?

The hippo may not have been so lucky in this scenario but experts still state that these massive creatures rarely ever fall victim to predators.  According to animal experts, a hippo attack is one of the most deadly encounters one can face. The hippopotamus can kill other ferocious animals with ease–such as crocodiles and lions–let alone human beings. Hippos are responsible for an overwhelming number of deaths every year.

1. Never Judge a Book By Its Cover

The hippo is responsible for more human fatalities in Africa than any other large animal followed by something not even close to the size of a hippo, a mosquito. It just goes to show that one can never be too certain when it comes to animals in nature.