This Video Shows An Amur Tiger Being Spooked By A Leopard But That’s Not The Whole Story

The Siberian tiger is on the brink of extinction and sightings of the big cat are rare. Footage of a tiger going near other species of big cats is even rarer. However recently a camera trap in a Russian nature reserve managed to capture footage of both an adult Amur tiger and leopard seeking refuge in the same cave. It has to be said that the Amur leopard is just as rare as its tiger cousin.

The tiger was not being polite

When you watch the footage, you will see a tiger sniffing around the snow and eventually coming across a small cave. The tiger takes a quick peek inside but decides against entering the cave, choosing to leave instead. The footage then cuts to show a female leopard emerging from the cave, stretching itself out after having taken a nap. Not only do you get to see these beautiful feline predators up close but many conservationists working in the reserve were shocked that a massive tiger would flee after spotting a sleeping leopard. It was either being courteous or showing cowardice.

More to the story

There is more to the story than those two explanations however. When the conservationists checked, they realised that the footage of the two cats at the same cave was actually shot five days apart and the footage in between had been lost. This is the reason there is no footage of the leopard entering the cave. This doesn’t mean that the tiger may not have been spooked by something else, it is just more likely to have been a hibernating bear rather than the leopard.

Leopards avoid conflict with larger predators

Leopards are extremely attuned to sensing larger predators and usually flee when they detect one, so it is highly unlikely there would have been any interaction between the leopard and the tiger even off camera. There are almost no recordings of run-ins or conflicts between the two species.