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Are Tigers 'Brainier' Than Lions?
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In fact, that observations that you quote, from Schaller, Shankala and probably a few other hunters, are incomplete as none of them passed more than one year with the wild tigers.
The truth is that all those groups of tigers seen together are "family". They are not outsiders, but mothers with they large cubs and/or daughters/sisters with they other cubs and sometimes with the dominant male of the area. The society of tigress in India is like a dispersed pride of lions, that only get together when there is a large prey, or when they have cubs large enough to get together, or simple when they want to. The truth is that tiger are social and respect each other. If one tiger make a kill, those that reach it latter respect it and await its turn. Valmik Thapar watched in one occasion a group of 8 tigers at a nilgai kill (250 kg), the kill was made by the prime female and her daughters with her own cubs shared it with here, all of them eat it in order. Other thing, male tigers are gentlemen as they share they preys with they females and cubs, even if they made the kill, and allow them to eat first. Evidence suggest that tigers have evolved a very complex social system and they don't form prides only because the habitat don't allow it and with such a low and scattered prey levels in the forest, it will be uneconomical for a group of tigers to live in an area like this. If a strange tiger is found at a kill by the territorial tiger/tigress, it will be pushed out immediately and a fight will arise. There are plenty of these cases reported in Chitwan and Ranthambore. 
I can't remember where I read this, but I've heard of male tigers peacefully waiting at a kill. This scenario probably occurs often with that Ranthambore dynasty.
 (06-30-2014, 06:32 PM)'Pantherinae' Wrote: I do also have the opinion that tigers, are more intelligent.Sorry, I just read again this thread... You are judging the intelligence of these both cats from your own man's point of view. This is the anthropomorphism. Why the fact of fighting would it be less a proof of intelligence than the fact of waiting for calmly ? Only because you have to waste your time by luring them into their separate cages ? I just could tell that the lions are only more extrovert animals. (10-25-2014, 11:35 PM)'tigerluver' Wrote: I can't remember where I read this, but I've heard of male tigers peacefully waiting at a kill. This scenario probably occurs often with that Ranthambore dynasty.In fact, the first one in report this case was Schaller (1967), when he found a male that was waiting his turn to eat from a prey killed by one of its females, which also had its cubs, playing with the male. Latter, Valmik Thapar (several books and tv shows) observed this same patern in the tigers of Ranthambore, where males often respect the place of the female and he also observed cases when the male made the kill, but when the female and its cubs arrived, he give them "priority" over its own kill! I have not observed this behaviour in lions or any other cat (although there are some cases of males sharing the prey with they sons, but not with the females). I still found the words of Jim Corbett very accurate: "The tiger is a gentleman". In Nepal, this type of behavior was not observed because the habitat is too close (Sunquist, Pers. Comm., 2009). However, the evidence suggest some type of "familiar" behavior, specially between the territorial male (T-105 - Sauraha) and his 18 years old son (T-104), most in the last days before T-104 left (Sunquist, 1981).  (10-31-2014, 03:42 PM)'Spalea' Wrote:Fighting on kill has nothing to do with intellegence, and that is not what we are saying at all.(06-30-2014, 06:32 PM)'Pantherinae' Wrote: I do also have the opinion that tigers, are more intelligent.Sorry, I just read again this thread... You are judging the intelligence of these both cats from your own man's point of view. This is the anthropomorphism. Antle specifically talks about more "focus", "figuring problems out" with the tiger compared to the lion. He is not the only one, many experts and trainers say the same. But lets throw all of that away and go off of fact. The FACT remains, Tigers have a much larger brain, their skulls are evolved to have a larger brain case to support the larger brain and this is for a reason. Nothing will change that and that is the most proof needed in this debate. (11-01-2014, 09:46 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote:(10-25-2014, 11:35 PM)'tigerluver' Wrote: I can't remember where I read this, but I've heard of male tigers peacefully waiting at a kill. This scenario probably occurs often with that Ranthambore dynasty.In fact, the first one in report this case was Schaller (1967), when he found a male that was waiting his turn to eat from a prey killed by one of its females, which also had its cubs, playing with the male. Latter, Valmik Thapar (several books and tv shows) observed this same patern in the tigers of Ranthambore, where males often respect the place of the female and he also observed cases when the male made the kill, but when the female and its cubs arrived, he give them "priority" over its own kill! I have not observed this behaviour in lions or any other cat (although there are some cases of males sharing the prey with they sons, but not with the females). I still found the words of Jim Corbett very accurate: "The tiger is a gentleman". I'd be carefull using singular examples as rules. Remember the Machli doc, where she was on a kill then a male rushed in, fought her, dominated her, then ate her kill. It will always depend on the individual male, I've seen lions share kills with hyennas before, so its very hard to put a rule of thumb to them. (11-01-2014, 11:40 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: I'd be carefull using singular examples as rules. Remember the Machli doc, where she was on a kill then a male rushed in, fought her, dominated her, then ate her kill. It will always depend on the individual male, I've seen lions share kills with hyennas before, so its very hard to put a rule of thumb to them.Again, you are confused. I specifically said "male with females and cubs", did I say other thing? Besides, of course that a male dominant tiger will steal the kill from a female if he can. For example, Nichols (1997) stated that the famous male Charger of Bandhavgarh stole many kills of Sita when he have the chance. However, this was when she don't have cubs. Interestingly, this same phenomenon of "cubs eat first" had been observed in at least three different places (Kanha, Ranthambore and Bandhavgarh). In the about eight cases recorded, always involving cubs, male tigers do share they kills and allow the female and cubs to eat first. So, no, this is NOT a singular case, I advice to read a little more on the issue first before comment. I recommend you to buy and read these books, just like I have done: 1. The deer and the tiger - Schaller 2. Tiger, the secret life - Thappar 3. Tiger, portrait of a predator - McDougal 4. The way of the tiger - Karanth 5. Sita, the life of a wild tigress (in National Geographic magazine, 1997) - Nichols. 6. Tiger, the ultimate guide - Thapar - this book is mandatory! [img]images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] When you read them, you will see that all my statements are always based in actual facts, not single news reports, hearsay and other second hand sources. Data suggest that although tigers do steal kills as any other dominant cat, they do share and care when the tigress have cubs, this have evolutionary sense, as any cub is a chance to perpetuate its genetic. In this particular aspect, it seems that Ranthambore males are way more tolerant than in other regions, but this is based only in qualitative data of that single region.
Well, at the end, here is the FULL document about the brain size of the lions and tigers, courtesy of the same Dr Yamaguchi, here is the link:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/..._captivity Results from my point of view, DISAPPOINTING! I read it and at the end, it don't offer any conclusion or relevant confirmation. Only assumptions and the famous "we need to investigate more". Well, here is the paper, get your own conclusions. [img]images/smilies/dodgy.gif[/img]
For the "lazy" kids that don't want to go to another page, I attach the document here. [img]images/smilies/wink.gif[/img]
Greetings.
Just a side not, on the skull size:
I was reading a preview of the new book "Wild Cats of the World" of Dr Luke Hunter, in the first edition of 2015. I was interested in tigers, obviously, but although the section about ecology, biology and other points, presents an excellent summary, the section of size is terrible, quoting head-body lengths of up to 300 cm for tigers, 250 cm for lions and 270 cm for jaguars, this obviously constitutes total length measurements, but the book don't differentiate them. Sadly, that his is an official document. Well, I want to focus in the skull lengths that he quotes, which is between 25.3 - 37.9 cm for tigers and 26.7 - 42 cm for lions. I ask, where are the records of Mazák on the tigers??? Why he ignore it??? The answer, he used the document of Yamaguchi et al. (2009) about the cranial volume of the tigers and lions, (attached in my previous post). There you can see the graphic and the skulls that they measured, sadly ONLY in Europe and North America, as usual and ignore the large skulls in Indian and Nepalese museums (the skull of 38.7 cm from Calcutta, measured by Sterndale (1884), and the skull of 38.1 cm measured by Dr McDougal (1977) in Nepal, remain unpublished in modern documents). The problem with these "new" records is that we don't know if that tiger of 37.9 cm and if that lion of 42 cm are wild or captive specimens, as Yamaguchi and his team mixed all the data (check the document). Again, I think that although the effort is good, new books from modern scientists put less and less attention to the body measurements and the general morphology. If someone can get the page 190 and 196 during the preview, I will be very grateful, as these are the only page that I can't unveil in the preview.
I just searched the book, Amazon has it set to be published in October. Where'd you find the preview?
In Amazon (http://www.amazon.com), but you most have an account to see it. There is an option of preview named "look inside". Pages 190 and 196 avoid me. In page 190 it seems that is the scientific name, skull and body size and draws of the subspecies. In page 196 seems to be about how the tiger kill its prey. I have not saw these two pages, I am only inferring based in the little pre-view at the left side of the window.
I have enlarged the page the most I can, for a better look. It is a little smaller than the google books view. Sadly, this books it is not yet in that place.
@tigerluver, did you manage to get those two pages? I tried this last weekend, but the pages 190 and 196 still avoid me!
 Tell me if you manage to see them.
@GuateGojira, my preview stops at p. 23. I click the sign in to view more pages options but nothing changes.
yes, the preview stop there, but if you search it by words in the left column, it shows you more pages.
However, if we can't see it, I think that I most wait until October for the full book. :sad-fill: |
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