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Wild Lions Stalked Life-Sized Dummy Prey in Uganda

Wild male lion in Uganda
Research · Behaviour

Wild lions (Panthera leo) in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, stalked life-sized dummy prey in 7 of 22 visits during a field test of a new way to study the opening phase of a hunt. The technical note, published on 8 August 2026, treated stalking as a predatory response because the lions slowed their approach, moved directly towards a model and crouched or lifted their paws unusually high while trying to remain undetected.

Over 43 evenings from June to August 2024, the researchers placed two static models about 30 m apart in open habitat. One resembled a hartebeest and the other domestic zebu cattle; wire frames were covered with locally obtained hides and built in a head-down grazing posture. When no lions were already nearby, distress calls from other prey species were played to attract them to the area. The team identified 35 lions and estimated that they belonged to three prides. They then recorded how the lions reacted to the models.

Lions inspected the models in 20 visits but stalked in seven

At least one lion paid attention to the models in 21 of 22 visits, and lions came close enough to inspect them in 20. Stalking occurred in seven visits, or 32%. When only the first visit by each lion or group was considered, stalking occurred in 6 of 12 visits (50%). Among first visits by lone lions, it occurred in 5 of 8 (63%). Six of the seven lions that stalked did so while alone.

The authors suggest that solitary lions may have had better opportunities to use stealth in the open landscape than groups, but the sample was too small to establish this as a general difference in hunting behaviour.

The models worked only during the approach

No lion attacked a model. Each stalk ended about 1–5 m away, probably when the lion recognised that the apparent prey was not real. The authors argue that a motionless model in a grazing posture may still look plausible during the early approach, when a stalking predator could interpret the lack of movement as a sign that it has not yet been detected. Static models are therefore better suited to studying how a hunt begins than what happens during an attack or after contact.

All seven stalks occurred in the first half of the experiment. Habituation may have contributed, but the authors stress that the small sample cannot show this with certainty: even three new lone lions visiting later did not stalk. They recommend larger study populations and varying the models to reduce the risk that animals learn the setup.

Sources and image credit

  1. Rouviere, A., Muge, J., Ruxton, G. D., & Montgomery, R. A. (2026). Technical note: examining the response of a large carnivore (Panthera leo) to dummy prey. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 72, 103.Primary peer-reviewed open-access technical note published 8 August 2026. Full text checked. The study presented wild lions in Murchison Falls National Park with life-sized hartebeest and zebu dummy prey over 43 evenings and recorded attention, inspection and stalking responses.

Image: Wild male lion in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, photographed 13 August 2014. Photo: Rod Waddington / Wikimedia Commons. Representative image from Uganda; not one of the lions or locations used in the Murchison Falls study. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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