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Sanju · 11-11-2018, 05:14 PM

(11-11-2018, 02:35 AM)Shadow Wrote:
(11-10-2018, 06:53 PM)Sanju Wrote: This thread should be about the coexistence between Pleistocene-Wanhesin tigers/ modern Holocene tigers like Amur/Bengal/Indochinese/Caspian tiger and Pleistocene species like ancient that is more primitive lion like Panthera leo/ Panthera vereshchagini or Beringian Cave Lion/Panthera Spelaea/modern Holocene lions like Asiatic lion(Panthera leo persica/leo) and European lion(Panthera leo europea/leo) in Pleistocene and Holocene Asia and South-eastern Europe.

These coexisted for over 50000-30000 of years preferring different habitats in the same eco-region and it is the coexistence reason for the implementation of Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno and Rajasthan’s Sita, Khumbalgarh. Pack animals-Solitary animals coexist like Tiger-Dhole, Lion-Dhole in the past, Lion-Hyena(spotted/striped), Lion-African wild dog, Brown Bear-Wolf etc.., are some of the examples of recent times and tons of these examples are there since life origin. Animals particularly, Big cats are intelligent, they avoid fighting at all costs which leads to injuries and sometimes death directly or indirectly. They are extremely territorial. For Whom? for their own species. It's an Intra-specific aspect. They do this to ensure the mating rights and territorial dominance of their own species and competition for resources which are limited. Any animal species particularly predators see other predatorial species as threat/prey/competitor for resources. So, the superior one eliminates the inferior when given chance and the inferior one avoids confrontation or conflict/fight with the superior at all costs and controls competition by killing the juveniles as the other side does. when threatened for life or it's off-spring or feeding on killings, the inferior one leaves when there is an escape but when there is no escape fight is inevitable but this scenario is almost impossible in wild. inferior ones that are sick or injured or juveniles on either side to minimize the competition. animals are not killing or fighting machines they know their life value which is important to continue their own species. yes, competitive exclusion or extinction may happen of an inferior species in inter-specific competition in a particular region partially or entirely but that is in the case of solitary-solitary type conflict or competition in the same niche in the ecosystem. Tiger-Lion not even live in the same habitat of the same region even if sometimes overlapped the Lion pride and Tiger don't dare to fight and one of them back off or flee based on the situation. The direct evidence are the millions of examples of coexistence and Lion and Tiger coexisted in small part of Europe and much Asia. This is the truth and not my opinion but wildlife institute of India, NTCA, Wildlife fund trust and tons and tons of wildlife bodies or organizations at the national and international level, nature conservationists, experts, modern biologists and scientists, researchers and books. tiger didn't play literally any I mean any role in lion isolation to Gir it is the depleting mixed dry open deciduous forests, grasslands and killing spree of a psychopath ape of both the keystone species of the same environment that is Lion and Cheetah of grasslands are killed by humans which lead in decreasing their population and last in extinction. Only, Indian Wolf remain as a keystone species for very little Indian grassland ecosystems. It lead to collapsing the grassland ecosystem and the entire grasslands which are their habitats and gave no chance to recover due to their lack of habitats and then again human occupied most of that land. After that, since project Tiger 1973 the vacant gap in the collapsed ecosystem is occupied by Flora and Fauna of the forest ecosystem and the Tiger and Leopard are keystone species which protected and restored the forest ecosystem and spreading forests in place of grasslands and finally by start of this century the grassland ecosystem is the least and horribly decreasing environment in India, placing the grasslands ecosystem Flora and Fauna much extinct and many endangered like our herbivores like black buck, chausingha, chinkara and many though they can survive in both type of ecosystems, the tertiary predator is required for only one ecosystem for the stability. that's why the lion and cheetah reintroduction are proposed to restore all things to right. But, that is not going to happen because of political knots like corruption and money of Narendra Modi and his gang. Even though, even now!!!!!! too India has the capability to save Asiatic Cheetah and Lion from extinction in about ten years but filthy politicians are busy in killing them.

Lion and tiger don't fight for fun unlike in captivity, where the animals are starved and got no way to escape and avoid the fight but to fight until death. It's totally, 100% different in the wild. Both succeeded to live together for thousands of years until 18 or 19th-century human killed and separated them.

Opinions are welcomed in this thread...
Well, it is difficult to see any reason, why these animals wouldn´t be able to live in same areas. balance would be easy to find if enough prey. People create often strange scenarios, but if there is enough prey, these animals should have no problem to co-exist.

Yes, People often misinterpret fights in between male lions or male tigers over territory and mates in the wild and imagine same will happen if they both live in same area. They imagine this based on captive tiger and lion staged 'vs' matches published in Youtube which are unnatural in which predators have no way to escape and are starved to stress themselves, forced to battle.
Big cats are extremely territorial. Tiger and Lion can't communicate with each other like with their own kind by vocalizations or scent marking on objects by urine and face rubbing (Eg: A chimp can't communicate with a bonobo entirely). They can't convey messages to each other like something is their territory by roaring in their own style with different purposes/intentions like they do to communicate with their own individuals. It is because they are different species even the closest relative to lion i.e.., leopard can't communicate with lion by roaring or scent marking something to say that it belongs to its territory in the same way a distant relative of different lineage but same genus i.e.., tiger can't communicate with a lion saying or marking something as it's territory and fighting for that territory with a entirely different species is even impossible. A tiger don't care about leopard scent marks for an area. It only cares about other male and females tigers (i.e.., its own species communications).
Like in case of leopard-tiger interaction, if a tiger sees a leopard it chases away for some distance otherwise in the first only, leopard secures itself by avoiding confrontation before the tiger sees it. The tiger chases the leopard away not because it came into "it's" territory or it may mate with his/her females/males. It is because leopard may scavenge on tiger's kill in tiger's absence (Competition for resources or Kleptoparasitism) or to protect its cubs by chasing it away from the cubs scent as leopard can be a threat to its cubs when the tiger leave them and go for a hunt or other activity or over leopard population may lead to less prey availability to itself (Competition for resources).

It does apply to their own species members as territorial nature is intra-specific (conspecies) aspect not to other species like a lion don't bother a tiger around as it is not an intruder into its territory. Animals can find and recognize their own species from others and at the same time can differentiate other animals from their own kind. Big cats particularly are intelligent and to them, other predators are just another animal that may be categorised as prey/threat(very unlikely)/competitor. Mostly, big cat sees another predatorial species as competitor and threat depending on what it is. So they chase them away or sometimes kill them either juveniles/adults to keep resource competition in check. But they won't hunt and eat other inferior like meso predators (as it is dangerous and for other dietary reasons), leaving other prey animals like ungulates.

As they don't like to eat another predator meat unless there is no option when less prey available or starving (Ussuri brown bear-Amur Tiger in russian far east during prey scarce winter season). Animals or Big cats particularly usually don't want to injure/die by themselves in fighting with equal or superiorly powered predator species unless there is a need. There is no need to fight between lion and tiger except to reduce competition as territory and mate aspects are not applicable. Things like Tiger is not as fast as lion so it may get caught and killed by a lion pride is not possible really because Tiger is not much less fast than a lion and sometimes even faster when considered on individual basis and Lion pride don't chase because neither there is no need to be worked, consuming energy which is essential for survival in wild nor tiger is a easy prey item to choose for hunt (eg: a solo hyena-lion pride interaction). Tiger won't risk going against a similar sized carnivore like lion on individual or group basis. If such situation occurs the weaker one submits by fleeing.

Tiger doesn't come in Lions habitat as it is more comfortable in denser regions whereas lion in open regions when given sufficient prey base. In buffer areas, predation may occur on both sides when an injured/sick/juvenile individual isolated and can't escape, or outnumbered leading to the death of inferior individuals as it is essential in nature to check the competition limited for limited resources. It is same as other inter-specific predator competition like leopard-lion,hyena-lion,dhole-tiger,leopard-tiger whatever you name it since, life birth. There is no specialty in Lion-Tiger coexistence as they are not wwe fighters who get money to do so as people speculate sometimes things like tiger-hunter, lion-fighter. Some people materialize living things as real steel movie robots or warriors in hypothetical battles for fun and built to fight only leaving other things like food gathering and reproduction. It is natural survival out there, every animal has to take care of itself, live as long as it can and have a duty to continue and spread its race around the world. Is it difficult to a Lion gang to kill all the Nile crocodiles in the river by swimming like a jaguar with a pack? or a croc float to target a lion pride like doing to a buffaloes? They may do it sometimes rarely but neither of them considers each other as prey rather a dangerous opponent/competitor/threat. If they do either of them might have gone extinct now- just an example to say interactions in between carnivores/predators. It didn't because both of them avoid each other by backing down in such confrontations based on situation Every animal struggle for the basic needs.

Lion and Tiger (diff subspecies of tiger and species of the lion) did coexist from middle Pleistocene to late Holocene of Asia and Europe. I'm not sure that early Panthera leo (which has a subspecies-Sri-Lanka Lion (Panthera leo sinhaleyus)) coexisted for much long with the Bengal Tiger up to Srilanka which is regionally extinct including cheetah but not leopard (as in that time the climate is favourable with grasslands before India stated turning to forests spreading from eastern Asia) which is somewhat different from modern leo lived in India including and periphery which is first wave to occupy the subcontinent before Asiatic lion which is 2nd wave came after the the precedor's extinction but then after Bengal tiger and Asiatic lion coexisted for thousands of year except in southern India as lion didn't go that far as they didn't have that much time as modern civilized human started hunting for fun which before generations didn't do for in such celestial scale.

Big cats coexisted are: