Quick Take
- A 600-pound antelope clearing a safari vehicle sounds impossible, but that reaction changes once you learn what kudus are actually built to do. See what kudus are built for →
- The lion was not the only threat that day. The stopped vehicles created a trap that forced the kudu into an all-or-nothing decision. Watch the escape unfold →
- Greater kudus don't survive predators by outrunning them, and their real survival strategy is something most people wouldn't guess. Discover their survival strategy →
- For the people inside that vehicle, the safari sighting got uncomfortably close. But just how close was it, exactly? See how close it got →
When a lion is on your heels, even a safari vehicle can become part of the obstacle course. In this remarkable clip from South Africa, a greater kudu races toward a road with a lion in pursuit. Instead of turning back, the antelope launches itself over one of the stopped vehicles and keeps going. Greater kudus are impressive jumpers, but this is a pretty spectacular way to prove it.
Kudu Sighting in Kruger National Park
The video was filmed in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Latest Sightings identifies the location as the junction of the H4-1 and H12 roads near Skukuza. The channel uploaded the footage in October 2013 and says the sighting occurred on September 16 of that year. The clip has since been viewed more than 3.7 million times.
Watch the Kudu Clear a Safari Vehicle
Greater kudus are native to eastern and southern Africa.
©Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock.com
Kruger National Park can be explored on organized game drives, but many visitors also travel through the park in their own vehicles. South African National Parks maintains an extensive network of paved and gravel tourist roads, and visitors are required to remain inside their vehicles except in designated areas.
That helps explain the traffic jam in this clip. Several vehicles are stopped along the road when a greater kudu suddenly comes racing out of the bush with a lion close behind. The chase reaches the road almost before the people watching have time to react.
The kudu does not hesitate. It bounds toward one of the stopped vehicles, clears the car in a single leap, and lands on the other side before continuing its escape. Latest Sightings describes the same sequence as a kudu jumping over a car while fleeing a lion. For the people sitting inside that vehicle, this was about as close to the action as a safari sighting gets.
The leap looks almost impossible given the kudu’s size, but these antelopes are built for exactly this kind of evasive movement. Long legs and powerful hindquarters allow greater kudus to clear substantial obstacles when escaping predators.
How High Can Kudus Jump?
Greater kudus (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) belong to the family Bovidae and rank among Africa’s largest antelopes. Adults can weigh more than 600 pounds, with males generally much larger than females. Adult males also grow the species’ unmistakable spiral horns, which can reach roughly six feet in length. Females do not have horns.
Despite that size, greater kudus are exceptional jumpers. Educational materials from the San Francisco Zoo report that they can clear obstacles more than eight feet high in a single bound. The Toronto Zoo similarly notes recorded jumps of more than 2.5 meters, or a little over eight feet.
That makes the leap in the video much less mysterious. A typical safari vehicle is a substantial obstacle, but it is still within the range of what a frightened greater kudu can clear when it has enough room to launch.
Kudus also rely on more than raw running speed when predators give chase. Their long legs, powerful leaps, quick changes of direction, and ability to disappear into thick vegetation are all important defenses. The Toronto Zoo notes that greater kudus are not built to simply outrun predators for long distances across open ground. Escaping often comes down to agility and getting back into cover. In this case, one enormous jump over a car certainly did not hurt.
