Post by bob on Oct 6, 2009 2:54:55 GMT -5
Bengal tigers are said to be generally smaller in size to Siberian tigers, which are supposed to be among the biggest cats in the world (after all, those live in the coldest of the environments, thus their constitution must be amazing) - and actually those Siberians can be MUCH bigger than your biggest lions (doubt if any of those monsters still exist in today's world though). Besides, tigers are more agile and faster, and being a loner (compared to the lions that often form prides) their fighting technique is quite different to lions. Also, while tigers are more hostile and aggressive, lions are generally more lax and lazy. It is said that comparing the two tigers are better hunters than fighters, while lions (males) are poor hunters but better fighters.
A zoo in Korea actually kept several of both animals (and managed to breed a hybrid between a male lion and a female tiger - a liger, in the late 80's~early 90's), and there were a couple of occasions where these animals fought against each other.
The first instance was when the head lion (from Africa) got pissed off at the head tiger (don't know from where) who was keep bothering a female lion that was its mate. The bout came to an unexpectedly short end however, the winner being the lion. The tiger was much faster, and used both paws to land numerous hits on the lion while supporting itself on the rear legs alone, but the lion endured the hits and KO'ed the tiger with just one counter punch, with one massive swipe while supporting itself with the other 3 legs. The lion was 10 kg heavier, in this case.
The 2nd bout was 3 vs 3 tag-match, and quite surprisingly the tigers won this one easily. The lions panicked, while the tigers showed great co-operation. One of the lions fled after getting bitten by all three tigers at once, and the other two just didn't know what to do and just lost their way. Btw, all these beasts had their fangs cropped and covered with stainless steel, so no animals were seriously injured
One interesting historical fact is that in the ancient Rome they often pitted lions versus tigers in the Colosseum. And apparently tigers won most of the bouts, but I don't know what variety of animals they had for those fights.
Personally I like tigers better and think that tigers will come on top of lions, just because tigers seem to be more ferocious and tenacious. But I also read from somewhere that when a lion and a tiger of around same size meet lions ALWAYS win... But it also depends on weather, as summer favours lions while winter is the dominant season for tigers.
Finally, I dunno if this is true or not but there was an incident where a lion, a tiger and an alligator was put in the same cage and were forced to fight (prolly an illegal bout) - and the lion and tiger joined forces to attack the alligato