Tigers and lions are the largest and fiercest predators on land and the strongest of the cats. Their beautiful, elegant posture, agile and robust body are all deeply attracted to each of us.
So we often compare tigers and lions, wondering who is more powerful, to some extent, they are not comparable, because their behavior, hunting skills are different, and the environment in which they live is very different;
Tigers live in the jungle, while lions live in the vast African savannah, a difference of 18,000 miles. Tigers like to live alone, are good at camouflage and ambush when preying, and have a very strong ability to strike deadly blows;
Lions like to live in groups, their ability to lurk and camouflage is inferior to tigers, explosive power is also inferior to tigers, individual combat effectiveness is slightly inferior to tigers, but lion endurance is better than tigers, they are more through teamwork to hunt.
If the tiger is placed on the grassland, I believe that the tiger can not prey at all, because they use to hide their trees are gone, all the previous predation techniques are not used in the grassland, and the grassland herbivores are larger and more alert, so it is difficult for tigers to catch prey when they act alone.
If a single lion is placed in the jungle, it does not have good camouflage skills, if it cannot end the battle in a short time, the prey is likely to escape, after all, the small space in the jungle is not suitable for long-distance, long-term running, so it is difficult for lions to catch prey in the jungle. Therefore, these two top predators have their own advantages and disadvantages, and there is no advantage or disadvantage.
If you have to fight, the tiger may have a better advantage, after all, the tiger's individual combat effectiveness can be a little stronger, and the tiger's size is larger than the lion.
But people lions are social animals, tigers are always alone, if they are really lucky enough to see outside the wild, then the lion will not be single-handed with tigers.
A solitary tiger
Tigers have a strong sense of territory, and they are not friendly to other individuals, they will mark their territory, and if a strange tiger breaks in, they will fight and drive away intruders.
But solitary tigers are not always alone, and they also have special circumstances that come together, such as the mating season, and the female tigers will accept strange males into their lives.
Males also welcome more females into their territory, but are still severely expelled from other males who break in.
In addition to the breeding period, tigers will also have a rare phenomenon of "social living", if the tiger's living circle becomes smaller, then the respective territory will become very small, their activities will appear a lot of overlap, so often we will find several tigers in one place.
If a large number of prey appears in one place, then these prey will attract more tigers to gather in a small range, and a large amount of food will also prompt the tigers to gather together briefly.
But the relationship between them is not like the lion, forming a real group to cooperate with each other, but for the sake of short-term interests, temporarily tolerating each other.
Solitary tigers have a higher survival rate than social lions, because solitary tigers can protect their cubs very well, and basically no other creature in the jungle dares to hunt their juvenile cubs on tiger territory.
Lions are different, among the lions living in groups, "infanticide" often occurs because of the replacement of the lion king, that is, the new lion king will kill all the cubs left by the old lion king, so in addition to natural disasters, the most common death of young lions is to be killed by the same kind.
Tigers, on the other hand, raise their cubs alone, and the chances of the cubs being harmed by other predators and their kind are small.
Why do lions, as felines, choose to live in groups? And the tiger can only live alone?
To put it bluntly, it is caused by the difference in living environment, which leads to huge differences in the living habits and hunting habits of tigers and lions.
Lions live in endless grasslands, where nothing provides lions with a good hiding place, and the grassland herbivores have each experienced many battles and have evolved a very powerful ability to avoid predators.
We often see in the animal world that lions will slowly approach their prey when hunting, but because of poor camouflage, even if they are far away, they may cause herbivores to be alert.
And the grassland is wide, you can run everywhere with full horsepower, lions run at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour, this performance is not excellent, and the speed of many herbivores is comparable to this;
So without getting close enough to the prey, a fatal blow, it is certain that a single lion will have a hard time catching prey on the prairie. And it is difficult for a single lion to kill some large herbivores on the grassland, such as bison, zebras, giraffes, etc., even if they catch them, they will be killed for a while and will be run away by their prey.
Therefore, although lions are cats, in order to survive, they also gave up their arrogant personality and chose to live in groups, through teamwork, by encircling and dispersing prey to hunt, even if the success rate of lions on the grassland is still not high, only 20%.
Long-term social life has also made lions slowly have great differences in behavior from other cats, and individual lions often form very strong emotional connections between them, they can establish family and friendship, and they share food with other individuals;
Even strangers are friendly and can build friendships in future collaborations.
Tigers are completely different from lions, because the tiger's living environment makes them not need to cooperate at all, but cooperation will make them less successful in predation and eat less food.
Tigers live in dense jungles, all the plants in the jungle can provide good camouflage for tigers, such as trees and bushes, etc., camouflage hunting is quite important for tigers, which is why tigers have evolved a camouflage suit.
When the tiger is hunting, it can lurk to a distance of several meters from the prey, which will not cause the prey to be aware of at all, and a tiger pounces on the prey basically kills the prey, and does not need to chase the prey for a long distance, and the jungle does not have the conditions to chase.
If the tigers are hunting, it will increase the chance of exposure, so the group is completely unnecessary. There is also the fact that the prey in the jungle is not as large and fierce as those in the grassland, and one tiger can completely solve the battle, and two will appear redundant;
Therefore, tigers do not need the help of other tigers at all to prey, and in order to eat more, tigers do not share their prey with other tigers.
summary
In general, social living is an advanced social behavior that is good for the survival and evolution of organisms, such as humans are social animals.
Animals that appear in this way of survival are generally more difficult to survive individually, and they can only survive well if they seek more individual help and protection.
Often the larger the group, the more secure the survival, the success rate of hunting will be higher, the food will be more, but the number of groups also has a balance point, if the balance point is exceeded, due to the limited amount of food in the living area, it will lead to a decline in the quality of life of individuals in the group.
Therefore, social animals will balance the number of their own groups, not too much or too little.
On the other hand, if an animal is very powerful, and it can guarantee its own life alone, then it does not need the help and protection of its kind, so there is no reason to accept any kind of kind, and the tiger is like this.
After they are 1 year old or 1 and a half years old, they will live alone without their mothers, and they can thrive in the jungle.