Tiger-Lion Coexistence in Eurasia between Middle Pleistocene and Holocene Epochs

[Sanju]

Once, Tiger-Lion coexisted like Gator-American croc. They may rarely try to kill each other to reduce competition due to dietary overlap b/w sympatric predators to reduce competition pressures on their limited food and space and to decrease threats of other predators to their young ones but that shows negligible impact in their population numbers as death only occur when they cross path in each other habitats and an individual is cornered or caught in ambush so that it can't escape orelse one of the individual takes care to avoid confrontation or runs away. Lion will kill tiger to reduce competition for prey and to ensure their young ones survival but not eat a tiger (mostly, coz they don't eat other predators nor they seem as prey) or protect its territory and mates coz tiger don't mate with lions, they both are different predators to fight for turf or territory coz there are no territories b/w lion and tiger and neither they can communicate with each other with vocalisations/body language/scents coz both are different species of different lineage of same genus. There are no territories b/w Lion and Tiger, even Lion don't have territories with its closet living relative Leopards of same lineage coz they are different species still.

The interaction b/w lion and tiger is same as Lion-leopard. Nothing special, they fight, kill each other but still live same areas i.e.., co-occurring or coexisting like before similar to Lion-Leopard. Lion-Leopard don't breed and hybridize naturally in the wild even being close relatives coz they are different kinds of animals and only breed with their own race, hence they are called species which is group of same individuals reproduce to give fertile offspring and in the same way, Lion-Tiger don't breed in the wild.

If Lion-Leopard can coexist, Lion-Tiger too coexisted and will coexist that is they can live in same area. ofcourse they compete and kill each other and predate each other but that's rare but that does show negligible impact on each other population like in b/w lion-leopard, still they survive even living in the same place or preferring different habitats. Man don't inter-breed with a chimp, there is no hybridisation b/w leopard and tiger/leopard and lion and there is no inter-breeding (out breeding/crossing) or hybridisation b/w lions and tigers coz they can distinguish other animals from their race and even in their race they are picky to choose the mate. Breeding with other race is out of question. Species itself is a isolated group of individual/population/community of same/identical organism differing from other types of animals races with exact similarities in behavior, genetically and phenotypically and everything else same which perpetuate through sexual reproduction to give fertile offspring.

These things never happen in wild not even by negligible chance. Even in imaginary case in a dream if somebody forcefully bred lion and tiger in wild, offspring is not born most of the time coz zygote is not formed with different chromosome number (in case of lion and tiger chromosome number is same as they belong to same genus)/ different genteic or chromosomal structure b/w different species. Even if the embryo is formed, it will get aborted in maximum. If it is born, it wont live few minutes due to various somatic disorders and genetic abnormalities. Even if it live, it can't live on it's own and sustain itself with its different physical characteristics which are out of natural selection to survive in the wild and it will be sterile. For example, a Liger is too heavy to run fast to gain enough speed and momentum to catch swift wild prey and it different coat doesn't give proper camouflage to ambush and its body size needs lots of meat many times more than their parents normal requirement rates in quantities, for its abnormal growth and metabolism.

So, nature always removes such unwanted variants (which are not present and occur in nature normally) like hybrids in populations through natural selection process in evolution to promote "only" the fittest organism of the survival to the changing environmental conditions to continue reproduction and continuation of its race making adaptation possible and hybrids and other mutants are removed from the equation in this process.

If species can inter-breed in the natural world then, the world will be filled with pokemons and jurassic world game hybrids. In captivity, situation is different coz animals irrespective of species are put together in enclosures so that they never know their natural instincts that is only to reproduce with its own species. So almost all hybrids types of animals are only created in captivity.

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Coexistence means living in same place not tolerating and being friendly with each other presence. Lion-Tiger didn't tolerate each other, they lived in same place that is=Co-existed/Co-occurred like other inter-specific predatory sympatric competitors. Reply