Junagadh (Gujarat), May 13 (IANS) In a rare incident, an eight-year-old lion ate a four-month-old cub in the Gir forest in Junagadh district of Gujarat, officials said. The incident occurred Monday in the forst between the villages of Dudada and Raidi when a lioness was being wooed by two lions.

The lioness had come with her three cubs to the area followed by a 15-year-old lion, said Chief Forest Conservator Bharat Pathak.

Pathak said the younger lion fought fiercely with the older one before driving it away. The cub, which had run away in panic when the lions were fighting, tried to come back to its mother when the victorious lion attacked and ate it, Pathak said.

“It is a rare incident. Lions don’t normally eat their own,” Pathak said.

He added that only the cub’s skull and four of its paws were retrieved from the spot.