How do wild cats, such as tigers and lions kill their prey?
All cats kill by suffocation when hunting large prey. They clamp their jaws around the prey’s throat, pressing its windpipe closed so that it cannot draw breath and suffocates. Occasionally, lions will clamp their jaws around the prey’s mouth and nose instead of the throat, and suffocate it in what is often called a ‘kiss of death’ – they are most often seen using this technique with buffalo. No cats kill by slashing open their prey’s stomach, but when hunting small prey – say, a lion hunting a hare – they will often simply seize the prey and bite down, crushing the life out of the small animal. Here’s an image of a tiger killing its prey: https://www.msu.edu/~wheel119/hunting.gi… If you are confronted by a big cat, the most important thing is not to run – running makes you seem like prey, and will trigger the hunting instinct. You should stand your ground and avoid eye contact (eye contact is a threat among cats)
