Strangest Animal Battles Caught On Tape

When we think of animals lunging for each others' heads, we typically think of lions fighting bears, of panthers rumbling with coyotes, of ruthless predators taking down vulnerable prey. But not every battle booked by nature is that predictable. Sometimes, two species with no natural beef just decide to duke it out; other times, the little guy comes out on top. In any case, we're glad some of these battles were caught on tape.

It's bad enough to face one lion, but 14? Even a fully grown elephant might struggle against such numbers, but this elephant isn't even that. It's a wee (for elephant standards, anyway) baby, and he somehow survives.

At Zambia's Norman Carr Safaris Chinzombo Camp, 14 lionesses decided to gang up on one small elephant. As the video starts, we already see one lion on the elephant's back, while another soon jumps on too. The elephant, for his part, runs this way and that, unsuccessfully trying to get the lions off his back. As a third lion jumps on him, he finally shakes a couple of them off and even chases after them with his tusks. He may be a baby, but he's still bigger than they are.

The elephant then tries to retreat to the water. This, sadly, doesn't work, and one lion chomps his tail in retaliation. He tries to run farther into the water, but the lions keep following and piss him off. He rushes after the cats and they scatter before remembering they have a significant numbers advantage. This second attack results in the best part of the fight: he mule-kicks one lion in the ribs, hard, nearly sending her straight back to the jungle.

He then retreats further into the water with a couple lions still giving chase, leading the camera-holder to ask, "Where are all the other elephants, for God's sake?" But they aren't needed, as the elephant scares off the final few lions. After this episode, he was named Hercules because subtlety is dead and buried.

Which do you think would win in a fight: a shark or an octopus? Most people would probably pick the shark. Even smallish dogfish sharks are still sharks, and an octopus is squishy and seems harmless. In this case, at least, it didn't matter. 

In this video, we see a dogfish shark chilling in the same tank as a giant Pacific octopus. But rather than simply camouflage himself until the shark dies of old age, the octopus grabs the shark and wraps its scary large arms around it. The shark, despite being all teeth and anger, never even begins to put up a fight as the octopus smothers it with little effort. You aren't the only person surprised by this.

According to National Geographic, the aquarium staff kept noticing dead dogfish in the tank and wanted to find out why. So they installed a camera to see what was happening. The octopus was happening, proving that even animals that go great with soy sauce can be dangerous predators.

Tiny box turtles aren't the most vicious of fighters, but here's one that either has no clue how small it is or simply doesn't give half a shell.

Roaming free in its house, this turtle comes across two fluffy house cats enjoying their vittles. The turtle immediately gets down to stalking. He starts by crawling behind one cat and pestering its tail until the cat scampers off. Moving at a pretty good clip for a famously slow animal, the turtle then goes after the second cat. When the cat doesn't move quickly enough for the turtle's liking, it snaps at its leg, even making contact. (Meanwhile, fully grown ninja turtles need actual weapons to get the job done.)

Somehow, the cat still doesn't get the point and simply moves on to another food bowl. This is unacceptable to the turtle, who keeps stalking and snapping at the cat until it finally walks away. Not once does this cat fight back, even though one good swat could give him a glorified hockey puck. Such is turtle power.

You might expect a fight between a giant alligator and a small turtle to go poorly for the turtle. That's a good instinct you have there, but it's leading you astray this time. 

This video picks up after the alligator has nabbed the turtle and has it in its mouth, ready to start chewing. And he definitely tries to chew, but the poor modern dinosaur can't crack the shell to get the to fleshy center. So the turtle just hangs out, stuck in the gator's maw. He tries to wriggle free, but he can't do much of anything. The gator, meanwhile, alternates between trying different angles and barely moving, almost like he's trying to figure out what comes next. He even tries to crush the turtle vertically, head to tail. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he takes a break just holding the turtle in his mouth, where the turtle stays until the end of the video. It's hard to say what happened after the video ended, but we like to think the gator eventually fell asleep and the turtle finally slipped away to freedom.

When you think of instant death in animal form, you probably think of the black mamba, which can kill an adult human with just two drops of venom, according to LiveScience. When you think of an easy dinner for one, something small and fuzzy — like a mongoose — seems a perfect candidate. But mongooses (yes, that's the plural) are actually immune to snake venom, so when the two come together, it's the rare situation where the ultra-deadly reptile is actually the underdog.

This fight is no different. At first glance, it looks like the mamba will have no trouble at all against the cute little mongoose, and while the fight's certainly a one-sided affair, it's not the snake who wound up on top. Instead, the mongoose uses its super-fast reflexes to continually dodge the mamba's lightning-speed bites, running circles around it and exhausting it until it can barely fight anymore. Even the mamba's attempt to be all scary and huge by lifting its upper torso several feet in the air is for naught because the mongoose knows victory is just a formality.

Indeed, after several more attempted strikes from the mamba, the mongoose finally grabs it and shakes vigorously, breaking its spine and paralyzing it. From there, it's an easy meal that's spent its whole life soaking in a venom marinade.

When you think of angry mamas in nature, you might think of big ol' grizzly bears or similarly large animals. But other moms are just as protective and often just as capable of obliterating threats to their children. Even if those moms are cute bunnies whose babies are under attack by a hungry snake. 

As this video opens, we see a snake wrapped around two baby bunnies, patiently waiting for them to die so breakfast can commence. Suddenly, Mama Rabbit barges in, knocks the snake away, and alternates between checking on her children and wrecking the snake. She grabs Ser Slytherin by the neck and starts thrashing it around, holding it by the top half and kicking the living daylights out of the bottom half. Even when the snake realizes it should really get to stepping, Mama isn't interested in letting it run off. She chases after it, grabs it again, and gets to thrashing.

At this point, the snake finally remembers it's a snake and goes for a bite. The rabbit reacts with an amazing backflip to dodge literally the only offense the snake gets in. Mama comes right back to give chase. She continues her pursuit, hovering over the snake, grabbing it, and thrashing several more times before the video ends. We aren't sure if the babies survived, but if they didn't, at least Mama got an early start on avenging their deaths.

Ever seen a rat terrier try to bully a Great Dane? This is basically that — it's one animal trying to antagonize and pick a fight and the other one standing there because it's 20 times bigger and has thus already won.

The hippo in this video is actually a dwarf hippo, not that it matters, because his opponent is a pretty typical duck. The duck has apparently concluded this giant beast is in its territory and so starts snapping and biting at the hippo's neck and mouth. The hippo seems only vaguely aware that it's being "attacked" and reacts with about as much enthusiasm as if a horsefly were bothering it. The hippo seems to yawn as the duck gives it everything it's got, even flying into the hippo's face to basically slap it. That didn't work either because obviously it didn't.

Finally, having had enough of this nonsense, the hippo attacks, getting the duck's whole head in its mouth with ease. But the hippo must have been feeling merciful and quickly lets go. The ducks shows its gratitude by attacking the hippo some more. Even when the hippo gets so bored he chooses to go swimming instead, the duck follows, biting him all the way down and out of view of the camera. We're not sure how this fight ended, though it's hard to root for this annoying dip of a duck.

This one isn't much of a battle, but you have to admire the sheer stones of this particular house cat. Here, we've got a cat and an alligator staring each other down. The cat must not have paid attention in Biology class because it walks right up to an alligator about twice its size. Then it stops to have a staring contest. Smart money is on the alligator, but betting money is stupid money. 

The beast strikes! Here, "beast" refers to the cat. The little, mostly harmless house cat swipes at this fearsome alligator. It's hard to tell whether it made any contact, but whatever happened was enough to send the gator scurrying toward the safety of the water. That alligator learned what so many of us already know — cats are ballers that could easily take over the world if they weren't so ridiculously lazy.