Have you ever wondered why the lion is called the king of beasts, and not the tiger, for example? After all, the tiger is larger and stronger, a swift predator. The weight of a male Bengal tiger reaches up to 300 kg, and the elongated body, not counting the tail, is 3 meters! Whereas the Transvaal large male lion weighs up to 250 kg, and the length of its body is 0.5 meters shorter than the tiger's. What is the matter here?
The following fact will help to imagine the power of a tiger: this strong cat can easily overcome a three-meter barrier with a large antelope in its teeth. Tigers are cruel, they have dangerous and long fangs, up to 13 cm, blade-like claws. These lone hunters do not seek support from anyone, so they always attack swiftly and with lightning speed in order to win for sure.
Tiger or lion? Who will win?
To catch up with the prey, tigers reach speeds of up to 80 km / h, and lions - only 60 km / h. Striped cats are not much, but still more agile and faster than lions. In addition, they are more aggressive and furious.
However, the lion has its advantages. And one of the most important is the absence of fear of the tiger. What can not be said about the tiger itself. Next to the lion, the tiger behaves restlessly, anticipating a difficult struggle with a worthy opponent. Moreover, the lion has a powerful weapon - his sledgehammer-like paw, the blow of which is more effective than that of the tiger. He is an experienced, strong and worthy opponent. It is not difficult for him to break the backbone of his victim with just a blow of his paw.
Unlike tigers, lions are not solitary hunters, but animals that live in prides (packs) and hunt collectively. The male who owns the pride does not take part in the hunt, this is not a royal business! But his duties include providing security for living on the territory of the pride, as well as protecting lionesses and cubs from all kinds of dangers and uninvited guests.
Therefore, the male lion spends most of his waking hours bypassing his possessions and the inevitable battles with violators of the territory, gaining invaluable survival experience. The roar of a lion, like a battle cry of a warrior, is heard within a radius of 8-10 kilometers. This sound terrifies all who hear it. Even nature helps this fearless warrior: a thick mane is so dense that it does not allow the fangs of enemies to dig into his neck. And even a large mane is designed to intimidate enemies, as one of the frightening elements.
Usually the weight of males is about a third more than the weight of females. It ranges from 1.5ts to 2.25ts. The average weight of males is 175 kg, and females - 125 kg. The largest lion known in history was shot dead in 1936 in the Transvaal. His weight was 313 kg, which was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records.
The tiger leads a rather isolated, rather than royal, way of life, like that of his relative. He has no subjects, he himself has to rush around the savannah in search of prey, and often people become it.
Both royal and wise!
But the lion is a typical king of beasts. He leads, like a real king, the whole pride, ensures its immunity. With royal grandeur and equanimity, he keeps order inside the pride, the first to eat the prey provided by females and young lions. And the look of the lion with its magnificent mane, like its roar, speaks for itself - the king of animals, although not the largest of them.
It is believed that the African lion is much larger than the Indian. This judgment arises from some features of the body structure and the density of the mane of the Asian subspecies. The Indian lion has a more squat, stocky organization, and its mane is not as thick as that of the African. The largest weight of an Indian male lion is 220 kg, females - 150 kg. The length of the body reaches almost 3 meters.
In captivity, where the lion quickly adapts and can be trained, the animals are usually the largest. London Zoo in 1970 recorded a weight record of 375 kg. In length, the record holder reached 3 m 30 cm.
And the hybrid is bigger and stronger!
But the largest feline in the world, though also in captivity, is the liger. Who is this, you ask?
A liger is a product of the love of a lion and a tiger, which is possible only in captivity. In the wild, a lion and a tiger never intersect, and the territories of a competitor marked with musky feces are always bypassed. The huge liger is larger than a tiger, larger than a lion, and sometimes larger than all of them combined.
An example of such hybridization is Zita, who was born in the Novosibirsk Zoo. When the young lion did not want to eat, and the tigress who was nearby in the cage howled sadly, the zookeepers decided to put them together. So the African lion and the Bengal tigress became the parents of two ligers - the girl Zita and the boy, who was later sent to the Kemerovo Zoo.
Now the ligress is still young, she is only 7 years old, but she has already outgrown the adult lion in the neighboring cage.
The only drawback of such crossing is the impossibility of procreation, since male ligers cannot fertilize females due to their sterility. Females can interbreed with lions. Crossings with tigers have not been recorded due to their small size.
And there is also in Miami the largest representative of ligers - Hercules. It weighs like two large lions or 100 domestic cats, or 5-6 people of average build - 410 kilograms. And if he rises on his hind legs, then his height is more than 4 meters.
Such gigantism is explained by the influence of genes. There is such a thing as hybrid power. It is she who contributes to the production of large, strong and intelligent cubs when crossing different pure representatives of the species.
The lion is a carnivorous mammal from the cat family. Lions are one of the largest representatives of this family. These very large cats are one of four members of the panther family. Lions live mainly in the savannas, but sometimes they can also be found in forests.
How much does a lion weigh in kilograms
Lions are very large and strong animals. How much does an adult lion weigh? The average male is about 200 kilograms. Although there are quite small individuals - weighing 150 kilograms, or giants about 250 kilograms.
Female lions are lighter than males - they weigh about 150 kilograms. However, this is also a conditional figure. It may depend on several factors, including:
- nutritional features;
- accommodations;
- variety and so on.
The largest recorded lion weight- 313 kilograms. We are talking about a heavy man-eating lion that was exterminated in South Africa. If we talk about breeds, then the largest of all types of lion is the Barbary lion. But this indicator was registered in the wild. But the largest lion, grown in captivity, weighs 375 kilograms - he lived in a zoo in the UK.
In addition to being very heavy animals, lions are also quite tall. The height of the male is about 120 centimeters, and the females - 105-110 centimeters. Lions live from 10 to 14 years. But in the wild, it is quite problematic for a male lion to live up to 10 years, since his main task is to defend himself and fight for territory for his pride.
Interestingly, lions are one of those predators that have really pronounced sexual dimorphism. Not only are females much smaller than males, they also lack manes. The reason is that lionesses act as hunters, but the mane gets in the way in such an important matter.
How much does a lion cub weigh
Compared to the formidable big lion, the lion cub looks very cute and helpless. His behavior is more like that of a kitten. In the first months of its life, a lion cub can even find contact with a person and make friends with him, but do not forget that this is a predatory animal that is used to living in the wild, despite the fact that many individuals are now raised in captivity.
Only 1 to 2 kilograms - that's how much does a newborn lion cub weigh. But then it develops very quickly, grows, gains strength. The mane already begins to grow somewhere around the age of six months from birth, and every year it becomes more and more magnificent. Lion cubs begin to crawl in a day or two, at six or seven months they already switch to meat complementary foods.
Lions are the legendary predators of the cat family. Only the tiger surpasses it in size. The natural habitat of lions is the African continent, south of the famous Sahara Desert.
A photo of a lion in the savannah is traditionally the "calling card" of Africa. However, due to the constant extermination by local residents, their population is preserved only thanks to protected areas.
In total, there are about 50,000 lions left. About 2000 more predators live in cages (in a zoo or circus). Such a number of lions is an occasion to think about their safety as a species on the planet.
Lion and lioness: similarities and differences
A characteristic feature of lions is their mane. This is the most striking distinguishing feature of a male from a female, but also a distinctive feature of all lions.
No other cat species has such a pronounced difference between male and female. The manes of lions are about 40 centimeters long and are located on the head, chest and neck.
Another sign of lions is a brush on the tail. The length of the hair on it reaches 5 centimeters, and inside there is a bone.
Males and females have the same yellow-gray color and short hair on the belly and back. The color of the mane and skin of predators is the same.
Females, not having such a chic mane, are easier to tolerate the hot weather of Africa, besides, their short hair all over their body allows them to pass through any thickets.
Perhaps this was the reason for the role of the lioness in the pride as the main food provider, and the lion was given the role of guarding the territory of the pack.
These cats are quite impressive in size. So males reach a length of about 2.5 meters and weigh about 180 kilograms.
Females are much smaller in comparison with them: 1.8 meters long and 125 kilograms of weight.
In height, lions grow up to 120, and lionesses up to 90 centimeters. The tail of animals is from 70 to 100 centimeters long.
Their largest representative, recorded by people, weighed 370 kilograms and was 3.6 meters long.
Life cycle
Lions are the most social predators of cats. They live in large flocks called prides. Lionesses in the pride strive to become mothers at the same time. This makes it easier for them to feed and take care of the kittens.
Pregnancy lasts 110 days, and the predators go to give birth in caves or thickets of bushes, the main condition is outside the flock.
After lambing, the females bring an average of 4 lion cubs weighing 2 kilograms each. Up to 10 days they are blind and helpless, and they begin to walk only after 20 days.
For the sake of hunting, lionesses have to leave the babies alone, and so that enemies do not find them by smell, predators often change their bed.
Such a rhythm of life for lionesses with offspring lasts 1.5-2 months, after which they return to the pride. There, babies are still fed with milk until they are six months old.
Moreover, the attitude of predators to cubs is different: when the father of the family dies, another lion can calmly destroy male children, but at the same time, the female lioness will protect the female children to the last.
Such an attitude towards males lasts up to 2-3 years, the so-called "age of majority" for a lion, after which they are expelled from the pride. Females always stay with their mothers, there are no other lionesses in the flock.
The lions after the expulsion have 2 ways: either create their own pride, or join an existing one. Those males that did not follow any of them live alone.
This approach leads to a high mortality rate among lions. Only 20% of lion cubs live up to 2 years - the most persistent and lucky ones.
4 years after birth, females give birth for the first time, and the cycle repeats again. The average life span of a lion is 15 years (up to 22 years in an aviary), of which from 4 to 10, the predator is at the peak of his strength and youth.
Prey and Enemies
African lions live in the savannah. This territory forms for animals their prey and natural enemies. So hoofed animals are what lions eat. Hunting for them is carried out by females at dusk (in the morning or in the evening), much less often during the day.
Males protect the territory from other lions. Collisions with them are the usual life of these predators. Often during the fighting one of the lions dies.
After hunting, prey, except for small animals that are eaten on the spot, are carried to the flock. All food is shared equally, regardless of the health and possible injuries of other members of the group.
Until the carcass is completely eaten, a new hunt will not begin, even if the potential victim is nearby.
The enemies for lions are hyenas, cheetahs, leopards. That is competitors. Those whose diet matches that of the pride. A flock may well take prey from hyenas, but if there are many of them, everything will be the other way around.
In the case of cheetahs and leopards, lions often become the main ones. This happens simply due to the cohesion of predators, because, unlike them, other cats are loners.
When lionesses find cubs of spotted cats, death awaits them - lions do not tolerate competitors.
The main opponents of predators are the Nile crocodiles, for which a lion in the water is prey, and a man.
However, in the case of the latter, it all depends on the territory: if the lion is in the reserve, it is protected.
Photo of a lion
The lion (Latin name - Panthera Leo) is a feline mammal and is one of the four "big cats" of the Panthera genus (the black panther in the photo is its relative). The lion is the second largest cat, after the tiger. Lions are unique in that they are the only cats that live in groups (prides).
Although lions once inhabited much of Africa, Asia, and Europe, they are now only found in the wild in Africa and the Gir Forest in India (in the Sasan Gir National Park). The main habitats of lions are woodlands, savannahs and grassy plains.
Characteristics and detailed description of the lion
Male lions are the only cats with manes.. The mane gives the lion a regal appearance, earning him the title of "king of the beasts". The mane of the male lion is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the species. She makes the lion's head visually larger, perfectly demonstrating a frightening look. This helps the lion in clashes with other lions and with the lion's main competitor in Africa, the spotted hyena.
Male lions weigh 150 to 225 kg (330-500 lb), females range from 120 to 150 kg (260-330 lb). The length of the tail of lions is 70-100 centimeters (2 ft 3 in - 3 ft 3 in). The rear end of the tail ends in a hairy tuft. This bundle hides the tip of the spine, about 5 mm long, which consists of the bones of the last section of the tail fused together. The lion is the only feline to have a tail tuft, the function of this tuft is unknown. At birth, it is absent, it begins to develop only at the age of 5 months, and at 7 months it becomes clearly visible. In the wild, lions live for about 10 - 14 years, while in captivity they can live for over 20 years.
What do lions eat and who do they hunt?
Lions are carnivores, which means they eat meat. Under natural conditions, lions usually prey on wildebeest, zebras and various ungulates (giraffes, buffaloes and gazelles). Sometimes lions even prey on young elephants, rhinos and hippos. Lions can also take prey from hyenas and other predators. Lions are known to be picky eaters and also eat rodents, small birds, hares and reptiles.
Lions, chasing their prey, can travel the length of a football field in just six seconds. The eyes of a lion have reflective cells that magnify the image several times and allow you to carefully monitor your prey even in the dark.
At the zoo, the diet of lions consists of specially prepared cat food, consisting of chicken (an interesting story about a chicken), rabbits (such as in this photo), lamb and horse meat.
How do lions live in a pride and what do they do
Lions mostly become active at dusk and at night. Lions spend most of their time resting, often up to 20 hours a day. This happens for many different reasons, including to conserve energy, survive heat waves and periods of lack of prey.
During periods of rest, lions have ample opportunities for communication. They gather and sleep in groups, rub their heads together, play together. All this is favorable for strengthening their social ties.
Living in a group allows lions to hunt together. Lionesses from the same pride may surround potential prey to attack it from different directions. At all, for hunting, lions choose tracking tactics, because for a long pursuit they are not so hardy.
When hunting, lions usually give up the chase for 45-100 meters (50-110 yd). Lions suffocate their victims, and larger prey are pressed to the ground with their necks to cut off their breath. This predator may also place its paw on the nose, mouth, or throat of prey. The lion easily captures small prey with one wave of one of its massive paws.
Despite their enormous strength and agility, lions are not always able to succeed in attacks on prey. If the failed victim runs away, they wait for a new one. In the animal kingdom, there are more effective hunters who catch prey more gracefully - these are dragonflies.
Lion breeding and their cubs
Lionesses are able to bring offspring several times a year. However, an adult female lion does not produce another litter until her cubs are about 2 years old. But if the entire litter dies, she will mate again shortly after the death of the last cub.
The gestation period for lionesses is 110 to 119 days.. A litter has an average of 3 to 6 cubs. Cubs are usually born in a secluded area, and when they reach 4-6 weeks old, they are assigned to a kindergarten introduced in the prides.
When a new male enters the pride, he can kill newborn lion cubs, so the females mate with him to produce his own cubs. Young cubs begin to participate in pride hunting at 11 months, although they are not able to survive on their own until about 30 months of age.
Infant mortality among lions is very high, the percentage of cubs surviving after the first year of life is less than 50%. Hierarchy is strictly observed in the lion pack. The male lions feed first, then the lionesses, and finally the cubs. In a pride, it often happens that prey is killed once every 3-5 days, so many cubs die of starvation. However, a cub is more likely to survive birth in a pride than if a lioness with a cub by itself.
conservation status
As usual, when we talk about a particular animal on our site about animals, we end the article with the "Conservation status" section. The number of lions is rapidly decreasing, according to various estimates, the number of individuals living in the wild is from 16,000 to 30,000, compared with about 100,000 in the early 1990s. The danger to the species is also that lion populations are often geographically isolated from each other, which leads to such a phenomenon as inbreeding (inbreeding).
If you ask even a child about who is the king of animals, then the answer will be unequivocal: "Of course, a lion." Yet there is another opinion. Many experts give the palm to the tiger, and they are sure that it will be he who will emerge victorious from the battle of these two titans. But in order to determine who is stronger, who is faster and who is more dangerous - a tiger or a lion, it is necessary to provide the main characteristics of these two animals.
a lion
Now lions are found only in Asia and Africa, although earlier their range of residence was much wider - from Europe to the Middle East. But over time, people pushed them back, and now in wildlife lions are found only in the south, east and west of Africa, as well as in India. African and Asian lions differ in their appearance and basic characteristics from each other: a different habitat affects.
These representatives of the cat family live in small groups - prides, the number of which ranges from four to thirty or more individuals. Usually a pride includes two or three males, one of which dominates, and several females with offspring. Large dimensions do not prevent these animals from overcoming even a three-meter height. In general, jumping is their forte. When hunting, the lion freezes in the grass in anticipation of the victim, and then knocks it to the ground in one calculated leap. Although, by the way, the main earner is the female, and the male is more responsible for protecting the territory of the pride from unwanted intrusions. It is quite easy to distinguish a lion from a lioness: the male has a lush mane, and the lioness does not.
Tiger
There are different subspecies: Amur, Bengal, Indochinese, Malay, Sumatran, Chinese. All names correspond to the habitat.
Tigers are solitary hunters. They do not live in groups, but apart. The male occupies an area of 700-800 square kilometers, and 500 square kilometers is enough for the female with offspring.
Who is bigger - a tiger or a lion?
The weight of an adult lion reaches from 180 to 240 kg, and the body length reaches three meters. Females are slightly smaller: the average weight is 140 kg, and the body length is half a meter shorter.
The length of the body of an average adult tiger is not inferior to the length of the body of a lion, on the contrary, it is slightly longer. As for body weight, there is also a difference of 50 kg in favor of the tiger. Representatives of the Amur subspecies are even heavier: their weight reaches 350 kg.
So, who is bigger - a lion or a tiger? It turns out that the striped representative of the cat family beats the maned relative a little in size.
Comparison of the strength of two predators
And who is stronger - a lion or a tiger? The answer is far from clear. It depends on what is considered indicators of strength: either the characteristics of the species, or the number of rounds won. The claws of a tiger are sharper and longer (10 cm) than those of a lion (7 cm). Since the tiger is on average heavier than the lion, it means that he has more muscles. The strength of their jaws is approximately the same, and they kill the victim in a similar way: they bite their fangs into the neck. But the success of the duel depends not only on who is bigger - a tiger or a lion, but also on the tactics of the battle. For example, the blow of a lion is more crushing. With one swing, he kills a hyena or a zebra. If we take external characteristics, then the tiger is stronger than the lion. But if we take the specific results of the clashes between these two animals as a basis, then the king of beasts does not give up its positions and proves that it deserved such a title.
Who is faster - a lion or a tiger?
Here the advantage is on the side of the tabby cat. An adult tiger can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h, while a lion is only 60 km/h. True, both those and others are unable to run at such a speed for long distances.
Who is more dangerous?
According to its behavior in a fight, the tiger seems to be more aggressive than the lion. He immediately rushes into battle, while the lion can enter the battle as if reluctantly. Sometimes it seems that he plays first rather than tries to strike. It's all about their social nature. The tiger is used to fighting alone, he knows that he has no one to wait for help from. And the lion, who mostly hunts with members of the pride, may habitually think that he has a support group behind him, ready to turn on at any moment, and therefore behaves less intimidating than the enemy.
Who is more resilient?
Definitely a lion. It seems that he does not care even about deep wounds and pain. He will fight to the end. The tiger, after several injuries inflicted on him, as a rule, runs away. In a fight, the tiger makes more active, but unnecessary movements, and because of this, his strength is quickly depleted.
Who wins the conflict?
The answer to the question "who is stronger - a lion or a tiger" requires facts and documentary evidence, and not just unfounded reasoning. There are many real videos that show the fight between two titans. In a nutshell, the conclusion is this: the tiger is the initiator of the conflict, but he retreats after the lion shows who is the master of the situation. The latter is more confident. Yes, and the lion has more fighting experience, because adult lions constantly fight for territory, and a tiger can only take part in a fight a couple of times in a lifetime.
The duel itself at first looks as if the tiger still inflicts more blows on the enemy, and this creates the illusion of his victory. But mostly these blows do not reach their goal, because the lion manages to dodge in time. The tiger, on the other hand, makes a lot of unnecessary movements, and this gets tired faster. In battle, he stands on two hind legs and tries to fight with his front legs, and at the same time it is harder to maintain balance. In addition, his strategy is not well thought out: he tries to hit on the neck, but the lion has a powerful mane that absorbs these blows, and in general they do not do much harm to the lion. The blows of the lion are more calculated, and if he beats, then so that the tiger will fall for sure. This predator strikes with one paw, standing on three others, and tries to get into the unprotected neck or tear a tuft of skin from the sides or back, and it succeeds quite often. If the blow is strong, but not fatal, then the tiger shamefully runs away, whining like a dog.
In fairness, it should be noted that there is also another side of the coin. Perhaps the tiger runs away not so much because he is tired or scared, but because the lion is more afraid of wounds and does not see the need to fight to the death in a domestic showdown. After all, if a wounded lion needs to lie down, then other members of the pride will take care of him, and the tiger can only rely on himself, and severe severe injuries doom him to starvation. So he can choose to retreat.
Fights in Ancient Rome
Interestingly, the expression "king of beasts" was attached to the lion in the days of Ancient Rome. The attitude towards him as the owner of great strength is evidenced by many architectural monuments, where this majestic predator is depicted as a winner. The question of who is stronger - a lion or a tiger, was also of interest to the ancient Romans. For the sake of the spectators, who were thirsty for bloody spectacles, different animals were pitted. Very often it was lions and tigers who had to measure their strength.
Who usually wins these fights? Almost all historical reports speak in favor of lions. For example, the predominant victories of these predators over tigers are recorded in Plato's Dialogues and Cleopatra's Memoirs. Moreover, there is evidence that the lion tore even an elephant due to its grip and technicality.
Another additional answer to the question of who is stronger - a lion or a tiger, are the architectural monuments of Ancient Rome. It is the lion that is depicted on the sculptures as a symbol of courage and strength. Therefore, eyewitnesses of animal battles also considered him so. There are very few monuments where the tiger is immortalized.
Skirmishes in zoos and circuses
In wildlife, individual fights would never have taken place, because the habitats of some subspecies do not intersect. For example, an Amur tiger or a lion living in Africa would never have had the opportunity to measure strength. Whether it's zoos, where they live in neighboring cells.
You can't argue with numbers. In most fatal cases, tigers fell victim. When they are together with lions in a confined space, such as an aviary or a cage, the tigers are very panicked, because they have nowhere to escape. They behave rather irrationally, and this is the main reason for their defeats. The lion, on the contrary, bends his line to the end, and the final outcome is the death of the enemy.
One animal trainer described the case of a lion named Sultan the First. During one performance at the circus, he challenged all the tigers. They approached him in the arena, and he defeated them all in turn. Moreover, these were only large young and strong animals. Sultan the First, like an experienced boxer, delivered false blows, bluffed, forcing the tigers to miss, and then delivered a crushing blow. The defeated tigers crawled around the arena, and the winner triumphantly finished them off. No one could pull them apart, all the tigers died. It was a cruel sight.
Having considered these facts, each reader can decide for himself who is better - a lion or a tiger - will prove himself in a fight. Although it would be much better if they never fought among themselves and did not attack a person.
