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Mama Leopard Uses Sausage Tree to Hunt

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This leopard mother has devised a clever way to ambush prey. She hides in the branches of a sausage tree and waits for antelope to come to feed on the fallen flowers. This ingenious hunting technique improves her success in providing food for her two hungry cubs.

TRANSCRIPT

- [Narrator] It's the season of the sausage tree flowers, good for bees, and the ideal place for the twins' mother to hang out.

She's not resting.

She's waiting for the fallen flowers to attract attention.

(tense music) Usually, leopards catch just once in every five attempts.

But by using this sausage tree technique, she has a much higher success rate.

It's also why we call her Moporota, the local name for sausage tree.

The cubs are developing their own killing skills, but by watching Moporota they might understand exactly what these flowers can give them.

Rest is impossible, so, within minutes, she heads back to the trees.

(tense music) The throat-hold makes it a silent death.

Stealth after the kill is as important as before, for one of the smallest of the big cats.

In this complex mosaic of the Okavango, bigger predators and scavengers stride across the landscape as if they own it.

They do own it.

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