[imagesource:youtube/latestsightings]

Shame, lions have it tough out in the Kruger National Park.

They’re clearly not the king of the jungle in so far as the wildlife spotters’ Latest Sightings videos reveal.

First, an elephant romped off victorious after successfully trunk-squirting a lioness away from a water well at Naledi Game Lodge in the Balule Game Reserve.

Now, another lion was turned into a scaredy-cat after a bloat of hippos (yes, that’s the cute collective noun for the semiaquatic species) chased him off a rock in the middle of their river.

Times are clearly changing, and those who were once thought to be at the top of the pecking order are being knocked down and shown what’s what.

Okay, I won’t turn this into a metaphor for the patriarchy. Moving on, 30-year-old Steyn Jacobson shared the unique footage with Latest Sightings:

“We started off with a quiet morning, so we went down to the river for our morning coffee stop. So that the guests could enjoy the view, as it was my last drive with them. Always looking around for something, I saw the hippo’s strange behavior. As we watched, the hippos grew increasingly agitated and started to circle a rock, clearly unhappy with it.”

“Looking through my binoculars, I saw what appeared to be a male lion. Stranded on the rock, surrounded by tons of angry hippos. All of a sudden, a big hippo went for the lion, and the lion had no choice but to jump off and into the water. In the end, another hippo went for the lion, but luckily, he missed it.”

Lions and water don’t typically bode well together, so seeing the little scamperer jump into the river to make a swim for it must have been tough for more than just his ego:

The folks who saw this once-in-a-lifetime scene were beyond chuffed:

“For anyone lucky enough to witness a rare sighting like this, my advice is to take it all in and savor every moment. These moments are fleeting, and you never know when you might witness something truly special in the wild. Guests always ask us what’s the rarest thing you’ve ever seen, and this is at the top, a very unique sight indeed.”

Jacobson noted that the male lion was a young nomad and not one of the dominant males in the area. Male lions typically defend a specific territory, but the younger males first roam around until they establish their own territory.

It was clear that this male lion had wandered into the wrong territory, and the hippos were not going to let him off easily.

[source:latestsightings]