Known as the king of the forest, the tiger is the premier beast in Asia, and many people have the impression that the tiger is the strongest cat beast. Others, however, were unconvinced, arguing that the African beast, the lion, was on an equal footing with or even better than a tiger, with arguments and lists many videos and pictures to argue with each other.
Indeed, in modern times, tigers and lions under the intervention of humans, there are some so-called lion-tiger fights, lions and tigers have their own victories and losses, it is difficult to distinguish who is strong and who is weak, but there is still a relatively large difference between the beasts of prey under human domestication and the actual wild beasts.
Some people have analyzed from the size of the tiger, the tiger is generally larger than the lion, especially the Siberian tiger and the Bengal tiger obviously surpassed the lion in terms of individual strength, and documentaries show that the Bengal tiger was placed in Africa and was more powerful than the lion.
However, some people do not agree with this conclusion, and some arguments have been made from the geographical aspect, the scope of activities of lions has once spread throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and other regions, but since tigers are considered to be stronger than lions, why is their living area always limited to the Asian region and has not expanded outward?
First, let's look at the origin of tigers and lions.
Lions and tigers both originate from the same ancestor, the first cat, which originated 30 million years ago and is the ancestor of all cats. The direct ancestors of tigers and lions are ancient cats that evolved later, but the origin of lions is much earlier than that of tigers, and the earliest lions originated at the same time as saber-toothed tigers, and gradually evolved into modern lions until about 120,000 years ago.
Feline development chart
The origin of the tiger is much later, until about 2 million years ago, evolved from the Ancient Chinese Cat, the Chinese ancient cat is the direct descendant of the ancient cat, but with the saber-toothed tiger, lion and other super large beasts of prey occupy the mainstream position in the ancient period, there are also giant wolves, giant pigs and other beasts that are far larger than the modern kind, in this case, the survival range of ancient cats is getting smaller and smaller, and they are even facing the danger of extinction.
The ancient Chinese cat is the last of the ancient cats, and their last territory is shrunk in the Longdan area of Gansu province in present-day China, which was not the Loess Plateau at that time, but a tropical area with abundant water and grass, dense forests and abundant food. But even in such an environment, there are more competitors, the survival of ancient cats is difficult, and eventually under the survival of the fittest, small ancient cats lose the opportunity to breed, and larger individuals are screened out and evolve the ancestors of tigers, that is, dragons and tigers.
The emergence of the dragon tiger heralds the rise of a new type of beast, with the gradual dominance in the food competition, the tiger's territory gradually expanded, although there is still a big gap with saber-toothed tigers, cave lions and other beasts, but at least the ability to protect themselves, especially the evolution of some giant tigers, such as the far Northeast Asian giant tiger, etc., and other beasts have a competitive ability.
Since then, tiger territory has gradually spread, and their footprints have basically spread throughout Asia.
Second, why did the tiger's territory stop in Asia?
About 120,000 years ago, the earth's environment underwent relatively large changes, some large herbivores, such as mammoths, etc. have disappeared one after another, and then the large predators that feed on them, such as saber-toothed tigers and cave lions, have also disappeared. Since then, the smaller, gregarious modern lions have become mainstream.
And the tiger has gradually stabilized its territory, occupying the newly emerging vacuum zone, the Asian region is mostly mountainous, woodland-based, suitable for ambushing prey, which is very suitable for lone tigers, and for social lions, it is not suitable for hunting, so the lions are gradually withdrawing from the competition with tigers, and there are only a small number of Asian lions in India.
But the retreat of the lion did not bring more territory to the tiger, whose migration routes spread throughout Asia, but stopped in Asia, and did not continue to spread to regions such as Africa and Europe, or even to the Middle East.
This is due to the fact that lions live in these areas in groups, the lion's territory is spread throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, and it is close to tigers in India, and the Asiatic lion is not homologous with the modern African lion, but is related to the Barbary lion in North Africa, which was once famous as the beast of the Colosseum.
The gregarious lion is obviously dominant in the face of the solitary tiger, the physical fitness of the two is similar, but the lion has the same habit of group living like canines, so in this case, the tiger who is good at fighting alone is certainly not the opponent of the lion who is good at team combat.
However, it is not realistic for lions to go further, because in forests at higher altitudes, tigers are more suitable for survival, and they are better than lions in terms of competition and hunting.