It's the kind of picture every wildlife photographer dreams of capturing.

 The kudu, a kind of antelope, jumps over two meters in the air on a road in Kruger National Park, South Africa. The extraordinary photograph was captured by 29-year-old Field Guide, Arno Pietersen.

The animals can leap huge distances, even from standing still. And Arno admits he was overjoyed to capture the image.

He said: "I think it jumped at least two and a half meters in the air. "They can easily clear three meter fences without having to run, even from a standing position too.

"I was ecstatic, hopping up and down in my seat, when I realised all shots were in focus."
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It's not often in the wild that an antelope turns from prey to a member of the pride, but that's exactly what happened recently at Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda.

Photographer Adri De Visser captured photos of the amazing sight when a lioness befriended a baby Uganda Kob after killing its mother. In the photo series, the lioness seemingly adopts the baby antelope, nuzzling it and picking it up by the scruff of its neck.

De Visser got word of two lions feeding on a kill and went to take photos of the scene when he discovered the heartwarming moment. After feeding on the carcass of the Uganda Kob, the lioness retreated to the shade of a nearby tree to rest. Moments later, the antelope's offspring popped out from its hiding spot in the tall grass.

The two animals took some time to warm up to each other -- De Visser estimates about 45 minutes -- but the lioness eventually let down her guard and befriended the calf. When a park ranger appeared on a motorbike the lioness picked up the impala like she would her own and carried it away. Other tourists to the park reported seeing the baby Kob unharmed later, after the photos were taken, according to The Daily Mail.

This interspecies friendship may be rare, but it's not entirely unheard of. In 2002, a Kenyan lioness named Kamuniak, meaning "the blessed one," adopted at least five baby antelopes throughout the year.

While the antelope might appear to be in greater danger than the lioness in the photos, Uganda Kobs (Kobus kob thomasi) as a species are listed as "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Lions (Panthera leo) are currently listed as "vulnerable" due to "indiscriminate killing (primarily as a result of retaliatory or pre-emptive killing to protect life and livestock) and prey base depletion."
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Coming from three deadly cheetahs, it's the kind of invitation that's best refused - but amazingly, this impala escaped unscathed from its encounter.

Luckily for the youngster, it seems these three male cheetahs simply weren't hungry.

That's because unlike other big cats, the cheetah hunts in the daytime, either in the early morning or late afternoon. The bursts of speed needed to catch their prey tire them out - meaning they need to rest after a kill.

And that seems to be the secret to the antelope's survival, as it's likely it fell into the cheetahs' clutches when they were already full - and tired out - from an earlier hunt.

Photographer Michel Denis-Huot, who captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya's Masai Mara in October last year, said he was astounded by what he saw.

'These three brothers have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old,' he said. 'On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together.

'At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily.'


These extraordinary scenes followed, as the cheetahs played with the young impala the way a domestic cat might play with a ball of string.

'They knocked it down, but then they lost interest,' said Michel. 'For more than 15 minutes, they remained with the young antelope without doing anything other than licking it or putting their paws on the impala's head.'


Even more extraordinarily, this story has a happy ending - after one tense moment when it looked as though one cheetah would bite the impala on the neck, the youngster ran away.

Let's hope it didn't tell all its friends how nice those big, scarylooking cheetahs really are when you get to know them. (Source)