Tiger VS Lion debate

I love wild animals since I was a little boy, especially big cats; they have always captured my imagination. The Tiger is, without a doubt, my favourite animal in the world. However, I still love Lions, Jaguars, Cheetahs and Leopards. Whenever I sit down to watch "Wild Discovery" or "Wild America" I hope they'll show a fight between two formidable predators. Unfortunately such footage is only shown once in a blue moon.

The problem with the idea of a Tiger fighting a Lion is that in the natural environment it never happens. It is often stated that lion and tiger habitats overlap at the Gir National Park and Lion Sanctuary in India. The rare Asiatic lion is to be found here in very low numbers (only a few hundred remain), but this is not a tiger country. The lion holds it as an exclusive range. The further the Gir lions have ever been recorded as straying from their forest habitat is 40 kilometers; this was back in 1966 when a group of 21 went on the move. Despite travelling such a distance, they were still nowhere near tiger territory. Gir Forest is also hotter, drier and more arid than the northeast wet forest areas preferred by the tiger, though it does contain appropriate prey species. This all means that the opportunity for a lion and tiger to meet in the wild is practically non-existent. There has been some suggestion that the tiger forced the retreat of the lion into the Gir Forest area, however history does not support this. The tiger was in India by 4500 BC; records exist that prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt. There is no evidence dating back this far for the Asiatic lion. It is believed they may once have ranged across Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and large areas of India, but were hunted nearly to extinction after they started to raid cattle. Later the remnant population was introduced into the Gir Forest. There are no tigers here and probably any within 160 kilometres.

So which would win a battle in equal average terms? Personally, I would call it a draw. Although it is clear that tigers do have their share of victories, it seems that more lion victories have been recorded. So why do I insist that it is still even? I will explain:

I have a lot of lion and tiger pics, and comparing it one can see that the forelegs of the tiger are more muscular than of the lion, the canines and claws are larger, and the paws too. But to get a precise comparison you should have 2 average wild sized male animals, each of the bigger respective subspecies, I mean, a Siberian Amur tiger and a South African lion. It is true that the Lion has an advantage in its mane but the tiger (Bengal and Siberian) have a slight size advantage - so you could say that these factors cancel each other out. The reason, I think the lion appears to be notching up more victories against the tiger is for the other important factors of ferocity, age, mood and fighting experience. As pointed out several times, the main job of a male lion is to defend his pride from other male lions - this gives him plenty of battle experience.

However, it should be noted that a male tiger also has the job of defending a territory (containing food as well as a number of females) from other male tigers. It is true that he has to hunt too, but nevertheless, fighting other males (also to the death, in some cases) is part of his "job-description". The reason why lions are doing it better these days could be due to the fact that there are so few tigers left in the wild (approximately 5000). This is mainly because of poaching. As a result of poaching, male tigers no longer fight so much because there is always a vacancy for a new male in an area to replace the previous one (killed by a hunter rather than a tiger).

Most big cat handlers and or/observers believe the LION to be the better FIGHTER of the 2 species, mostly because of the fact that the tom lion has to do battle much more often and is just predisposed to actually want to fight other males, whereas the tigers rarely actually do battle, and when they do it is not nearly with the intensity of the lion, as tigers are solitary animals/hunters, and to do battle up to the point of inflicting serious injury on each other would doom both victor and vanquished to death by starvation, because they could no longer hunt. Another advantage for the lion is that he is used to living/operating in extreme heat, whereas the tiger is not. In fact, the Amur tiger which is the worlds largest cat lives in frigid climates, and overheats much quicker than would the lion, the lion has better stamina which would serve it well in a battle between the 2 species. Thus the temperature of the environment for the fight would be a crucial factor.

The TIGER however, is considered more powerful, STRONGER and better HUNTER of the two, and is usually a bit HEAVIER than the lion. Physically, lions and tigers are almost equivalent. Their skulls are very similar, but in general the tiger’s is more massive and more arched. The tiger skull is therefore more superficially “catlike” because the facial part is shorter and more rounded. On average the nasal bones are longer and narrower in tigers. Zygomatic arches or cheek bones are extremely wide and thick in both species but more so in the tiger. The sagittal crest to which the neck muscles are attached, is higher and larger in lions. The bottom edge of the lower jawbone is convex in lions and more concave in tigers. Compared to the lion, the tiger is longer and usually heavier, but it does not stand as tall at the shoulder. If the lion in the fight was a male, he has a huge mane around his neck that would help protect him from the tiger’s bite and that is a good thing, because the tiger has much longer teeth, is a bigger cat and is more agile. The way cats kill is with their teeth and a bite to the back of the neck or the throat. It would be hard for the faster, larger tiger to get a death grip on a male lion. The tiger does not have the protective mane, but can out maneuver the lion.

The tiger has no rival as a pure predator, but hates the idea of a fight. As a lone predator, fighting for the tiger is an extremely bad idea and injury from a fight could spell starvation. Seated next to a male tiger, the male lion is composed. It is well known by animal handlers that females of the species do not really have any problem coexisting in the same cage/enclosure with each other,or even with members of the opposite gender/species,the problems come when males of the opposite species are kept together, because it is natural that they want to do battle,and it is natural that when they do battle,the winner runs the loser off,out of the territory, but if they are in the same cage/enclosure the loser cannot retreat and the victor keeps attacking,sooner or later resulting in the death of one cat or the other. The male tiger, on the other hand, is usually nervous and apprehensive when closed to a Lion. Tigers, historically, are extremely wary of the male lion and this has created problems for some zoos and circuses. Lions are extremely confident and proud animals and seem to have no fear of being closed to Tigers. The tiger does not seem to have the lion's capacity for calm analysis and appraisal. This puts him at a disadvantage in a fight with a lion. A male lion, especially if it has a well developed dark mane will manage to intimidate a tiger. If the initial intimidation gets the better of the tiger, it'll lose its confidence and start being reluctant. Then the lion will have the advantage. Any roars of the lion will be ignored by the tiger because they don't react to roars of a different species. But the tiger has a more powerful build than the lion, and if it has the chance to put its power to good use, the tiger will win without a doubt.

I think I can draw on some of the evidence on various web sites to back me up here - the case of the particularly ferocious Bengal tigers found in the Nepal Valley. Here were tigers that did have to fight each other for territory and they became extremely good at it, so much so that they almost always defeated lions in combat tournaments. The theory of tigers backing off because they are solitary hunters and don't want to risk injuries from fighting (as it would result in the inability to hunt and hence, starvation) does not hold true in this case. In places where there is a high-density tiger population, if a male tiger backs off, he will never win a territory of his own and hence, would also starve - so backing off is no longer the best option. A ruling male tiger would not tolerate a rival on his turf and would try to kill or drive him away (there are no places to hide either, a territorial male would soon know if there was any other tiger about, as he spends a lot of time patrolling and looking for signs). It is claimed these tigers attacked violently and relentlessly, most often winning in any fight against the lion. It was also discovered that this tendency towards extreme aggressiveness was confined entirely to the tigers of the one area. The great puzzle is why this should be so. Modern theories suggest the high level of aggression developed after vast numbers of tigers became cut off in a relatively small forest. A dense tiger population in a small area would greatly increase the frequency of territorial confrontation. Competition over the small amount of prey and the available females of breeding age would accelerate the process of natural selection. Today, as many as 250 tigers are still found in this forest, however there is no current record of a particularly high level of aggression.

I should also add that Male lions can and do hunt by themselves (or in groups) when they have not taken over another pride yet. So my conclusion is that if decent sized tiger populations were allowed to thrive in the wild - they too would produce individual males with a ferocity and battle experience equal and perhaps superior to that of the lion (thankfully still very numerous in the wild).

Led (Dame the Tiger)