Are Tigers 'Brainier' Than Lions?

[GuateGojira]

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.
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