Tiger eats leopard: Bengaluru man's click goes viral

A Bengaluru-based professional wildlife photographer, Harsha Narasimhamurthy, has captured a rare photograph of a tiger eating a leopard at Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan. The photos have since been widely shared on social media.

The tiger identified as T-101 was sighted in Zone-1 of the national park recently.

IFS officer Parveen Kaswan shared Narasimhamurthy's photos in a tweet, "When hunter gets hunted. Tiger eating leopard in RTR. Rare capture... Have you seen anything like this!!"

Speaking to DH, Narasimhamurthy said, "From the perspective of a photographer, sighting a tiger in the wild itself is a bliss. Capturing it eating a leopard is a double slice of luck."

The photographs are from March 30 when Narasimhamurthy, who also teaches wildlife photography, was at the national park with his colleagues. When they entered the gate early in the morning, they spotted pug marks and followed it by walk.

"The pug marks ended near a stream and we went a different direction from there. We went back again by 9.30 am to take a chance. There were two canters full of people watching a tiger from afar. Once they left, the tiger moved closer and that's when we saw it feed on the leopard," he narrated.

It was as an unbelievable moment for him as he had captured a similar instance last year. "I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Being able to see it again came as a surprise. This time, I was able to capture it from much closer at about 40-50 feet distance," he said.

Kaswan, who tweeted these photos, told DH, "These incidents do happen in the wild. But documenting it in such a good manner is rare. These are big cats which are territorial and fierce. None can predict these instances."

Conservation biologist Dr Sanjay Gubbi explained the phenomenon. "A tiger exhibiting predatory behaviour towards a leopard occurs often in the wild as it wants to eliminate competition. The tiger and the leopard are competing predators and feed on similar prey species wherever they co-occur. As the tiger is a much larger animal in size, it tries to eliminate its competition through various ways including killing its competitor. But these large carnivores could also co-occur and avoid confrontation by segregating themselves either temporally (leopards may shift their activity time when tigers are inactive) or spatially (leopards avoid areas used by tigers)," he said.