When you’re on a photo safari in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, you pass the king of beasts on his terms.
The accompanying footage, featured Friday by Wildest Kruger Sightings, shows a ‘massive’ male lion in a dramatic standoff with a safari vehicle.
The driver attempts to pass as the lion has his back to the vehicle, facing a lioness napping on the road’s edge.
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But in a swift about-face, issuing a roar of disapproval, the lion forces a standoff that lasts several seconds before the lion determines the threat has passed.
The passengers, only feet away, undoubtedly captured incredible images before the lion turned away.
In another dramatic display this past week in Kruger, a smaller male lion found itself facing down several angry hippos after becoming stranded on a rock in a river.
The lion leaped and began to swim when the closest hippo lunged with its enormous mouth agape. Another hippo went after the lion, but the lion was too quick.
–Image courtesy of Wildest Kruger Sightings