Have you ever seen a leopard stepping away from a fight or an attack? If no, this video of the apex predator backing off during a fight with a tiger will leave you stunned.
Is the reason ‘co-existence’? Well, at least Indian Forest Service (IFS) Susanta Nanda thinks so. Sharing the rare video on his Twitter handle, Nanda wrote, “This face off between the tiger and leopard is bit unnatural. What do you think as to why both backed up without attacking each other. Peaceful coexistence?”
The video starts with a tiger closing in on a leopard in a deep jungle. However, the leopard suddenly caves and starts rolling on the ground by moving its paws upwards. Seeing the leopard’s gesture, the big cat just casually walks away from the face-off.
IFS Nanda pointed out that such a scenario is ‘unnatural’ and guessed it could be due to ‘peaceful coexistence’.
With over 237.8K views and thousands of likes, social media users highlighted that the leopard might have surrendered.
“The tiger could have easily taken down (killed) the leopard. But, I think that behavior of lying down by leopard was to show that it surrenders to the tiger,” commented a user.
Another user wrote, “The leopard clearly gave the surrender gesture. Probably the tiger took it and backed off…”
“My conclusion: Tiger was in full control of the situation. The way leopard rolled on the ground, was a friendly gesture. Probably they knew each other. Tiger was not in attacking mood. It too was circling leopard casually,” commented a third user.