Next time you try to feed a caged hungry animal, remember you might have to pay a heavy price for it - as did this elderly man.

The man's hand was almost eaten away by a circus tiger in China. Thanks to an onlooker who saved the pensioner by hitting the big cat in the cage with wooden poles.

It all happened in Xichuan, central China's Henan Province, where a circus group was delivering the animals into the town on November 22, says a Mailonline report.

The circus was to be performed in a plaza, where the animals were brought in cages on a truck.

The pensioner fed a lion and a tiger, while sticking his hand into the cage and standing too close to the animals. There was no circus staff around.

Source: Khaleej Times