Picture Of The Week - Motherly Protection

This incredible image shows a lioness attacking a crocodile as she tries to cross a stream in Africa. But what's even more incredible is why the lioness is attacking: It wasn't just to save herself, it was to protect her lion cubs from the deadly predator.

This photo is just one in a sequence that show the incredible events unfolding. The photographer told the Daily Mail: 'I watched a lioness carefully move out into the channel and then there was a huge splash in the water,' she said.

 

'The sequence of six pictures of the real action were taken in one second.

'Luckily for the lioness the crocodile did not have an opportunity to do the death roll because her mouth was kept closed between the front legs of the lioness,' the photographer added.

'It was only after checking my pictures on the camera viewer that I really realised what I had witnessed. Luckily the story had a happy ending because all the lionesses and cubs made it safely to the other bank.'

 

To read more, and see the entire incident unfold, visit the Daily Mail website.