The scene is strikingly reminiscent of children playfully hitching a ride on a grown-up’s body. One lion clambers onto the giraffe’s back, while two others wrap themselves around his legs. The giraffe, seeming little fazed, tromps through the brush.

In reality, the footage taken in Klaserie Game Reserve near South Africa’s Kruger National Park depicts an attack, a pride of lions teaming up to take down an adult male giraffe. Francois Pienaar, a safari guide who filmed the video, calls it the best sighting of his career and says the whole incident lasted five hours.

The clingy method of attack is fairly standard for lions, David O’Connor, a researcher at the Institute for Conservation Research at the