The lion’s worst enemy is the hyena. Hyenas eat the same food as lions, so the lions and the hyenas often come into conflict over food.

Prey Competition Because lions and hyenas both consume the same prey, they are each others’ most common competitors. Lions are three to four times larger than hyenas and kill larger animals. Both lions and hyenas frequently steal from each other.

These are creatures that compete for food, and hyenas are scavengers, which means that anything that walks or crawls is food to them. The lions have all justification for hating hyenas.

Hyenas: Competing Interests. Competition between hyenas and lions for resources leads to infanticide—the practice of killing each other’s young. Learn why this behavior makes the two species “mortal enemies.”

“It’s that evolutionary niche hyenas have slipped into that they can both steal the prey and kill their own, which makes them so successful,” Hofmeyr says. In groups, hyenas have been known to kill lions.

Lions are what are called “top level predators” and are not preyed on by other animals. However, lions have numerous enemies including elephants, buffalo, hyena, hippos, crocodiles, apes and humans.

It wouldn’t necessarily kill a person to have their jaw removed, it has happened before in procedures to remove tumors and bullfighting accidents, but possibly if the lower jaw is ripped off harshly, a major artery, such as the carotid, could be damaged or severed. That can cause almost instantaneous death.

“It would be impossible for even the strongest human to break the skull through compressive forces exerted by any means (either with their hands bilaterally or by stepping [on] it) in any portion of the skull,” he wrote.

The tongue’s extrinsic muscles are what anchors it to bones like the jaws and other parts of the skull. Tearing out a tongue, then, would be like tearing out any muscle: Really, really difficult — but not impossible.