Lion and tiger fights -- Introduction: By far the most frequently asked question this site receives is: "In a fight between a lion and a tiger, who would win?" As a consequence, I have spent a great deal of time researching this and talking with people whose careers studying Carnivora extend back some 25 years. Together we have searched for historically documented evidence from which this article has been drawn. It should be understood that the question is exceedingly difficult to answer as historic records on this type of event are few and far between. Some conclusions can be drawn from studying the various animals, their conformation and habits. Limited historic film and documentation does exist of lion, tiger, and other predator fights. But comparisons of the modern lion and tiger, which are sometimes vastly different animals from their historic, (often extinct) cousins, must be based almost entirely upon a combination of sensible evaluation and assumption. Legend: Information which specifically supports the lion as the best fighter is bordered in green . That which supports the tiger as the best fighter is in blue . For browsers incapable of displaying coloured table borders, each table also contains a blue or green asterisk. Lion/tiger poll: After reading these articles, please fill out the poll available here.

The likelihood of an encounter: It is often stated that lion and tiger habitats overlap at the Gir National Park and Lion Sanctuary in India. The rare Asiatic lion is to be found here in very low numbers (only a few hundred remain), but this is not tiger country. The lion holds it as an exclusive range.





* There has been some suggestion that the tiger forced the retreat of the lion into the Gir Forest area, however history does not support this. The tiger was in India by 4500 BC; records exist that prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt. There is no evidence dating back this far for the Asiatic lion. It is believed they may once have ranged across Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and large areas of India, but were hunted nearly to extinction after they started to raid cattle. Later the remnant population was introduced into the Gir Forest. There are no tigers here and probably none with 160 kilometres. The furtherest the Gir lions have ever been recorded as straying from their forest habitat is 40 kilometres; this was back in 1966 when a group of 21 went on the move. Despite travelling such a distance, they were still nowhere near tiger territory. Gir Forest is also hotter, drier and more arid than the northeast wet forest areas preferred by the tiger, though it does contain appropriate prey species. This all means that the opportunity for a lion and tiger to meet in the wild is practically non-existent. What about in captivity? How likely are lion/tiger fights there? Disagreements do happen, the most likely time for this is when introducing new animals to a group, but most places keep the different species apart and generally speaking introductions are so controlled there is little more than a few surface scratches inflicted. The image on this page does not show a lion and tiger 'fighting'. What it actually shows is a relatively routine domestic dispute which occurred after Jassass, a 250 kilogram seven-year-old male lion, and Warda, a six year old tigress weighing 120 kilograms, were introduced in an effort to produce a liger at Jordan's zoo. (Continued Page 2)

