The two most powerful cats recognized by the world are lions and tigers. But which one is more powerful? This question is of interest to all of us, and there are different opinions. So I will talk about it in detail today.
There are many subspecies of tigers in the world, such as South China tiger, Siberian tiger, Bengal tiger, Sumatran tiger, Indosinian tiger, etc. Among them, Siberian tiger is the largest, with a body length of 3.3 meters and a body weight of more than 300 kg. I remember reading a document that the largest tiger was captured in the Central Asian republic of the former Soviet Union. It is 4 meters long and weighs 780 kg, twice the size of a common lion tiger. Therefore, in terms of body shape, the tiger is the largest cat.
At present, there are only two main subspecies of lion: African lion and Indian lion. (it is often said that the puma is a mistake of the bobcat. The puma is the largest cat of the genus felis. It belongs to the same genus as our domestic cat and is more closely related to each other. ）Among them, the Indian lion is smaller, and the number is nearly extinct. We often see African lion. The adult male African lion is generally 2.3-2.7 meters long and weighs about 250 kg.
Since the size of animals usually determines their strength, the absolute strength of adult Siberian tigers is better than that of most African lions. In terms of appearance, they all have terrifying fangs and sharp teeth. Their common feature is that they have powerful jaws and cleft teeth. They have great power when they bite, and this huge force can be used to kill large animals. On the other hand, the lion, especially the male lion, has an exaggerated head and face due to his mane, but his body is thin, while the tiger's body is vigorous, but his head is slightly delicate.
The African male lion looks very powerful, all due to a group of manes, so the vision is particularly large, but the hunting skills are relatively poor, endurance speed is also very poor. The tiger has similar long hair after adulthood, with long hair on its face and neck, which is not inferior to the male lion in appearance. Moreover, in terms of individual hunting skills, tigers have both strength and speed, and can swim on trees. The success rate of hunting alone is very high. Lions fight in groups, and the efficiency of female lions is much higher than that of male lions.
The muscles of bodybuilders are very, very strong, but when Chinese scientists dissected the Siberian tiger, they found that once opened, their muscles were more beautiful and stronger than those of the best bodybuilders. The muscle fibers were very thick. There was little excess fat in the whole body. It was almost difficult to see the fat. The strong bones were attached with strong muscles This animal has a great explosive power. The tiger's explosive power has been proved. There is a crack on the concrete floor of the lion tiger mountain animal house in Beijing Zoo. The skinned tigers are strikingly similar, and the anatomy shows that the heart capacity of tigers is larger than that of African lions.
The different geographical environment determines the different fighting styles and tactics of lions and tigers. On the vast plain, it is suitable to give full play to the strength of the group, lock in the target and wait for work with ease. In the jungle, the prey is easy to dodge, hide and escape, which requires higher fighting skills. Lions are strategists, tigers are tacticians.
As lions and tigers do not live in the same geographical environment, it seems difficult to compete, just like the cross talk about Guan Gong vs Qin Qiong. In the west, the lion has always been known as the king of beasts; in China, the king of beasts is the tiger. It is said that in ancient Rome, people used to let lions and tigers fight in the arena. As a result, the tiger defeated the lion every time. Scientists in the former Soviet Union tried to make two hungry adult lions of the same sex and body shape fight each other, and the tiger won.
Some geographers and zoologists put forward that there were lions in Yunnan in ancient times. But why has it disappeared now? The tiger has driven the lion out of the mountains and forests where the living conditions are comfortable and convenient, and drove it to the deserts and grasslands of northwest India, Arabian Peninsula and Africa to experience the hardships of vagabond. In terms of geographical distribution, the tiger takes Siberia as its base, and its footprints cover Eurasia and South Asia subcontinent, and develops into Bengal tiger subspecies, Caucasian tiger subspecies and South China tiger subspecies. Only the sea prevents them from entering America. Some individuals crossed the South China Sea and entered the Indonesian islands and developed into Sumatran tiger subspecies.
From extremely cold to extremely hot, the tiger shows strong adaptability. The tiger moves alone. Only during the breeding period, the male and female can get together for a few days, and the female tiger raises the cubs independently. It shows that the survival ability of tiger is stronger than that of lion. The African lion went northward from the African continent into the Arabian Peninsula and then into South Asia. In history, there was a competition between lions and tigers in India. Although there was no written record, the lions finally retreated to the northwest corner of India (called Asian lions), and the Bengal tigers all over South and Southeast Asia was the final result.