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Sometimes sheer determination is what it takes. And this lion had it in spades. In 2021, Kenyan safari guide Suhaib Alvi watched a lone male lion dig out a warthog burrow for nearly a full day before taking down a warthog.

“If you want to witness such moments on safari, you have to be patient and willing to sacrifice any other sightings you hear of,” wrote Alvi in an Instagram post. “This particular day, we spent almost 7 hours with this lion called Bob Marley [for] the dreads under his mane. He would get up every 20 minutes or so and dig the burrow deeper. We had to be ready as the warthog in the burrow could dash out any moment.”

Alvi captured several moments of the long siege on camera. “It was coming to the end of the day, and we were almost losing hope when it started raining heavily,” wrote Alvi. “Bob Marley used this to his advantage as the burrow filled with water, and he started splashing the water inside the burrow which confused the warthogs and made them rush out. We were expecting one warthog but instead, four came rushing out, and he managed to get one of them.”

The hunt is far from graceful — but it’s quite the sight to behold the mud-covered lion digging a massive hole in the savanna and then holding a squealing warthog in its jaws.

It’s far from the first time a predator has attacked burrowed animals. Here are a couple of other brutal videos of similar instances.

Watch a Wild Dogs Dig Up a Warthog

Watch a Grizzly Bear Dig Up a Black Bear Den

Watch a Brown Bear Dig Up a Wolf Den

Sage Marshall
Sage Marshall

Sage Marshall joined Field & Stream as an editorial intern in 2018, when he worked at the publication’s former office in Manhattan. His desk-mate was a mounted warthog. After graduating from college, he worked as a freelance journalist for two years before returning to the F&S team full-time in 2021 as the brand’s News Editor.

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