There are only two cases in which a bison meets a lion: one is in Asia, where an Asiatic lion meets an Indian bison; One is in Africa, where African lions meet African bison (scientific name African buffalo). However, Asiatic lions are currently only protected in India's Gil National Forest Park, and it is impossible for 10 Asiatic lions to encounter 10 bison. Therefore, 10 bison versus 10 lions can only happen on the African savannah. So, in this case, which side will win? Let's talk briefly about this.
First, let's take a look at the "grudge" between african lions and African buffaloes.
African buffalo is a unique african bovine, many people like to call them African bison, however, African buffalo is an animal of the genus African buffalo in the bovine family, and the bison is a general term for the wildlife of the genus Bovine, so the African bison can only be regarded as a common name, not rigorous.
African buffalo is one of the "Five Great African Beasts", adult African buffalo have an average weight of 600 kilograms and a body length of about 3 meters. At the same time, the African buffalo is also the most grumpy herbivores in Africa, especially the females with cubs, they will attack all animals except their own kind that try to get close to it, and among the entire African wildlife, the African buffalo is the most injurious animal. Despite this, as herbivores, they still can't escape the predators. Throughout the African savannah, only lions regularly hunt African buffalo.
In a survey of lion hunting in nature reserves in South Africa, African buffalo, with such a large size, accounted for about 30% of the lion's total food. Although at first glance this proportion is not high, but the lion herd's prey includes antelope, zebra, wildebeest, warthog, hippopotamus and many other herbivores, so the proportion of a single animal is about 1/3, which is enough to prove that the lion herd has a "special love" for African buffalo.
In fact, lions hunting African buffalo is also a "helpless move". Because lions are social animals, and their size is large (the average male weighs about 190 kilograms), increasing the size of the group means that they need to get more food at a time, so from the composition of the lion's diet and the proportion of various herbivores, the prey they hunt is more than 200 kilograms. While hunting an African buffalo, a herd of medium-sized (10 or so adult lions) can eat for 2-3 days, although doing so takes a lot of risk.
10 African buffalo vs 10 lions, which side wins?
This problem is more complicated, because in practice there will be a variety of situations, let's talk about the possible situations:
01 There are old, weak, sick and disabled buffalo
Lions are usually not the only female lions when hunting African buffalo, and according to zoologists, although male lions are mainly responsible for patrolling territory in lion groups, they rarely participate in hunting. However, when lions hunt African buffalo, the male lions have a participation rate of more than 80%. That is to say, among the 10 lions who participated in the battle, there were 1-2 adult male lions, and the rest were female lionesses.
African buffalo is a typical social animal, and the members of a buffalo herd range from as few as thirty or fifty to hundreds of heads are obviously not something that lions can compete with. So, the strategy adopted by the lion is to catch up. After all, African buffalo are herbivores, and they have an instinctive fear of carnivores. Let's assume that a buffalo herd has only 10 members and when they encounter a lion herd, they will run first, and the one who runs the slowest is the old, weak, sick and disabled. All the actions of the buffalo in Africa are under the command of the chief, who has two ways to deal with the distress of his companions: one is to abandon, and the other is to rescue.
Abandonment is a common option for buffalo herds, because most of the slower runners are old, sick and disabled, and when this type of companion is caught, the buffalo herd will not risk rescuing. At this point, 10 lions and 10 buffaloes become 10:1, and the captured African buffalo will undoubtedly die.
Rescue is when an adult healthy member of the group or a cub is caught by a lion, in which case the buffalo leader will lead the clan members back to rescue, usually in which case the lions will avoid it.
Therefore, when there are 10 African buffalo old, weak, sick and disabled, it will occur that all the other buffaloes flee except for the old, weak, sick and disabled.
02 10 African buffalo fight to the death with 10 lions
This rarely happens, because lions and buffalo always end up with one side escaping, after all, for lions, what they want is to get food, not desperate. If that happens, I think 10 buffalo will win. Why? There are three reasons for this:
First, the body size gap
Although carnivores have an overwhelming advantage over herbivores, there is a big premise, that is, the body size gap should not be too large. As we said above, the average weight of adult African buffalo is about 600 kilograms, which is more than three times that of adult male lions. And among the 10 lions, only 1-2 are male lions, and the rest are female lions with an average weight of about 140 kilograms, and their combat effectiveness is far less than that of male lions. With such a large body size gap, it is almost impossible for lions to take down adult African buffaloes one-on-one, but the collision (horns on the head) of African buffalo is fatal.
Second, the actual situation
Although on the surface, African buffalo is the main prey of lions, it is precisely because African buffalo is large and aggressive that lions are also extremely risky when hunting. In the African savannah, the animal that kills the lion the most every year is the African buffalo, and most of them occur when the lions besiege the single African buffalo, since the single African buffalo can complete the "counter-killing" with a certain chance under the siege of the lion herd, then under the same adult age, the lion cannot hunt the African buffalo.
summary
Ten African buffalo meet ten lions. In most cases, the buffalo fled in all directions, leaving the old, sick and crippled to be bitten to death by lions. In rare cases, bison herds will band together to rescue them. Once the African buffalo unite, even the lions only need to escape. Therefore, if 10 buffalo and 10 lions fight to the death, the buffalo has a high probability of winning, and the lion has almost no chance of winning.