Lion attacks 2 fighting gazelle

Nature has provided defence mechanisms to herbivores like gazelle (two animals fighting in this video) or deer (a similar species). These mechanism helps them protect themselves from carnivores (non vegetarian animals).

One of those defence mechanism is their sense of smell. Deer have up to 297 million olfactory (scent) receptors in their nose, compared to humans with just 5 million. They can smell a lion from miles away, as long as the wind is blowing from the lion towards deer.

Usually a lion will plan before attacking to its prey. It will rub against the local vegetation to hide its cent from the prey. It will approach the prey from against the wind to ensure that it’s cent does not reach the prey. It moves extremely slow, or often crawls just before attacking its prey. It may have taken hours to get to the distance it ran in a few seconds in this video.

But lion did non of that in this video. Why?

Answer is that he knows that it’s silly season for the male antelopes, which make them focussed in other things like mating. Their testosterone levels are very high in this period, and they are almost unaware of their surroundings. Both hunters and carnivores like to hunt them in this season, because they are easy prey.