"But no-one in my team ever dreamed of seeing this. We found no previous record of a jackal being so aggressive towards a lion."

The sequence of pictures shows the black-eyed jackal walking behind the beast when it sits back on his haunches and crushes it.

The canine then squeezes out from under the cat and leaps towards it snarling and snapping.”

Brit-born Dr Stratford added: “Wisely, the jackal decides that the lion has learned his lesson and continues his journey around the waterhole.”