Tiger versus lion


Historically, a comparison of the tiger versus the lion has been a popular topic of discussion by hunters, naturalists, artists, and poets, and continues to inspire the popular imagination. In the past, lions and tigers reportedly [|competed in the wilderness], where their ranges overlapped in Eurasia. The most common reported circumstance of their meeting is in captivity, either deliberately or accidentally.

Behavioral comparison

Both the lion and the tiger have fearsome reputations in their native areas in relation to prey, sympatric predators, and people. Both may prey on humans, though rates of man-eating tend to be higher for the tiger.
General differences in behavior:
More specifically, however, the Asiatic lion has similarities and differences with both its African relative and the tiger. For example, Asiatic lions are social like their African relatives, and females may be promiscuous. However, the structures of the prides of African and Asiatic lions vary, with male Asiatic lions usually associating with females during times of mating, similar to tigers, and whereas Asiatic lionesses and tigresses may practice promiscuity in order to defend their cubs, African lionesses are believed not to do it for that purpose.

Coexistence in the Eurasian wilderness

Currently, India is the only country confirmed to have both wild lions and tigers, specifically Asiatic lions and Bengal tigers. Though they do not share the same territory, they did in the past, and there is a project mentioned below that could lead to their meeting in the wild.
Before the end of the 20th century, Asiatic lions and Caspian tigers had occurred in other Asian or Eurasian nations, including Iran. As such, there is a word for 'Lion', which can also mean 'Tiger', and is used in Iran, South Asia and other areas, that is 'Sher' or 'Shir', and its significance is discussed below. Not only did Heptner and Sludskiy had talk about the lion and tiger both occurring in places like Iran, Anatolia and Transcaucasia, they also mentioned that the ranges of the lion and tiger often overlapped.
According to Colin Tudge, given that both cats hunt large herbivores, it is likely that they had been in competition in Asia. Despite their social nature, lions might have competed with tigers one-against-one, as they would with each other. Apart from the possibility of competition, there are legends of Asiatic lions and tigers breeding to produce hybrid offspring, which would be ligers or tigons. From the fossil record, besides genetics, it would appear that the modern lion and tiger were present in Eurasia since the Pleistocene, when now-extinct relatives also existed there. Additionally, in the days before Indian Independence, the Maharaja of Gwalior introduced African lions into his area, which is a habitat for Bengal tigers.
The possibility of conflict between lions and tigers had been raised in relation to India's Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project, which was meant to introduce the Gir Forest's lions to another reserve which is considered to be within the former range of the Asiatic lion, that is Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, before December 2017. Kuno was reported to contain some tigers that came from Ranthambore Park, including one called 'T-38'. Concerns were raised that the co-presence of lions and tigers would "trigger frequent clashes." At the same, the American biologist Craig Packer considers that a group of lions would have a clear advantage over a tiger and a pack or lionesses would have a similar advantage over a tigress. Therefore, Packer is of the opinion that for Asiatic lions to survive in an area with Bengal tigers, the lions would have to be moved there as intact groups rather than as individuals. Although the habitats of Indian lions and tigers are similar means that they both live in conditions that favor solitary hunters of prey, these lions are social like their African relatives, and may form fighting groups, whereas tigers are usually solitary.
Reginald Innes Pocock mentioned that some people had the opinion that the tiger played a role in the near-extinction of the Indian lion, but he dismissed this view as 'fanciful'. According to him, there was evidence that tigers inhabited the Indian Subcontinent before lions. The tigers likely entered Northern India from the eastern end of the Himalayas, through Burma, and started spreading throughout the area, before the lions likely entered Northern India from Balochistan or Persia, and spread to places like the Bengal and the Nerbudda River. Because of that, before the presence of man could limit the spread of lions, tigers reached parts of India that lions did not reach. However, the presence of tigers throughout India did not stop the spread of lions there, in the first place, so Pocock said that it is unlikely that Bengal tigers played a role, significant or subordinate, in the near-extinction of the Indian lion, rather, that man was responsible for it, as was the case with the decline in tigers' numbers. As such, Pocock thought that it was unlikely that serious competition between them regularly occurred, and that even if Indian lions and tigers met, the chance that they would fight for survival was as good as the chance that they would choose to avoid each other, and that their chances of success, if they were to clash, were as good as each other's.

Observed fights

In the circuses of Ancient Rome, exotic beasts were commonly pitted against each other, including Barbary lions and tigers. A mosaic in the House of the Faun in Pompeii shows a fight between a lion and a tiger. There are different accounts of which of these animals gained the victory. Although lions and tigers can be kept together in harmony in captivity, fatal conflicts have also been recorded.
In addition to historical recordings, clashes between lions and tigers were reported or even caught on camera in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was not always clear which species regularly beat the other, according to Doctor Packer.

In captivity

The figure of Clyde Beatty's 50 tigers killed by lions includes the following:

Favoring the tiger

Art

Battles between the two were painted in the 18th and 19th centuries by Eugène Delacroix, George Stubbs and James Ward. Ward's paintings, which portrayed lion victories in accordance with the lion's symbolic value in Great Britain, have been described as less realistic than Stubbs.
The British Seringapatam medal shows a lion defeating a tiger in battle; an Arabic language banner on the medal displays the words Asad Allāh al-Ghālib. The medal commemorated the British victory at the 1799 Battle of Seringapatam over Tipu Sultan — who used tigers as emblems, as opposed to the British emblematic use of lions.
The Hindu goddess Durga depicted with both the lion and the tiger:

Literature

18th-century naturalists and authors compared the species' characters, generally in favor of the lion. Oliver Goldsmith ranked the lion first among carnivorous mammals, followed by the tiger, which in his view "seems to partake of all the noxious qualities of the lion, without sharing any of his good ones. To pride, courage and strength, the lion joins greatness, clemency and generosity; but the tiger is fierce without provocation, and cruel without necessity." Charles Knight, writing in The English Cyclopaedia, disparaged the opinions of naturalists Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon and Thomas Pennant in this context, stating "the general herd of authors who eulogise the 'courage, greatness, clemency and generosity' of the lion, contrasting it with the unprovoked ferocity, unnecessary cruelty and poltroonery of the tiger, becomes ridiculous, though led by such names as Buffon and Pennant."
In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Narada told Srinjaya that tigers were fiercer and more ruthless than lions. This is in contrast with other literature from ancient India, which prefers the lion to the tiger. For example, Vedic literature depicted the lion, rather than the tiger, as the "king of the forest."
The lion and tiger rival each other in Iranian literature. For example, Humphreys and Kahrom, in their 1999 book Lion and Gazelle: The Mammals and Birds of Iran, treated them as the "two greatest and most beautiful" of Iranian carnivores, albeit being extinct there. As with the lion, the tiger's Persian name was used for people and places.

Economics

The term "tiger economy" has been applied to Asian countries that have undergone rapid economic growth, and the term "lion economy" to their African counterparts. The two sides, nicknamed "Asian tigers" and "African lions", have also been compared.

Cinema

In Paalai, a 2011 Tamil film, there is dialogue about the characteristics of the tiger and lion. It concludes that the tiger is superior. In the film, the tiger is the symbol and flag of the native Tamil tribal people and the lion is the symbol and flag of non-Tamil Singhal people.