Four Lions against one water Buffalo, what are the odds? A simple straightforward battle you may think but this Buffalo had other ideas, it wasn't going down without a fight. It took the Lions all of ninety minutes to bring it down and even at that, the feisty Buffalo left its mark on one Lion.

The entire brutal scene was captured by game reserve ranger Roan Ravenhill, 28, at the Mala Mala game reserve in South Africa. See more photos after the cut...

Mr Ravenhill, who was about 20 metres away for the entire attack, said: 'There was a fight going on between the cape buffalo bull and a pride of lions and we could see them leaping upon it. Suddenly we could see that a young male had managed to get hooked by the buffalo's horn underneath his left front leg. He ended up stuck there for a good 20 minutes. 

'After that time, he managed to get unhooked, but was limping for days afterwards we noticed. By a long way, it was the longest battle we have ever seen between lions and a buffalo - it was hard to watch, but that is the reality of nature.'