Did someone mention Jaws? Zoologist swims with Lioness

Kevin Richardson, an animal behavourist, swims with Meg, a 185kg lioness, in the Crocodile River in South Africa.

Mr Richardson, a former human physiologist now working in a nature reserve, turned his attention to animals a decade ago and now regularly plays with dangerous adult cheetahs, hyenas and leopards.

But he has a particular affinity with lions. He regularly swims with his animal companions and sometimes spends nights with them.

Lionesses allow him to pick up and stroke their newborn cubs.

Animals he has known since birth are easiest to be with, he says, but he claims he can become close friends with any lion under one year old, when it is still flexible enough to accept him as part of its own pride.