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

[Sanju]

(03-21-2019, 10:38 AM)parvez Wrote: I believe lions dominated solitary tigers during Pleistocene as they lived in groups. But a head on faceoff between single lion and solitary tiger would had been a so bloody fight with the big hearted lion and the highly athletic tiger facing like trutrue warriors.

First, No versus content Please... :) This thread is not about who is dominant or more powerful, who is larger or who is stronger, who wins or loses a fight...

There is nothing dominating, Lions only arrived Eurasia about 0.8 mya through Iberian bridge. At that time, if you are talking about "true tigers" then, the one that is already present is him:

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He is the most ancient, widespread (most of Eurasia incl. Sunda) and versatile spp and ancestor to all modern tiger spps and some plesitocene spp like solenensis and hence, he is called "Antique Tiger". He evolved in Late Pliocene about 2 Mya. Then, Lions (fossilis, vereschagini, youngi and spaelea) are immigrants about 0.8 mya. According to the assumptions of the last of genetic research, these tigers almost entirely disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene era, maybe around 10,000-12,000 years ago.

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These are not alone, there are various species of saber toothed cats (inc. smilodons), cave bears, cave hyenas, cave leopards and other extinct canids and felids. They all coexisted with other herbivorous and avian mega fauna and homonids.

(03-21-2019, 10:38 AM)parvez Wrote: And tigers those days weren't as strong and dominant as they are today.

NO, he is not small. He is larger than modern spp like Siberian and Hyrcanian tigers (his descendants), it grew to sizes of 2.3 m  in length, 120 cm  in height, and 200 to 350 kg in weight on average and can be the largest subspecies of Panthera tigris. It is not popular like the american lion or the smilodon populator but could be the largest natural cat of all time. Its body weight might have reached 500 kg.

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And we are not entirely sure about cave lion species social behavior. There are strong reasons from both sides as these evolved from basal lion spp like Natodomeri lion (P. cf. leo) which don't have such social ecology like prides or mane (sexual dimorphism) which are specific to modern spp of lions like leo and melanochaita.

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Let's assume, the cave lion species are social and live in groups. The chance of their fighting with tigers or smilodon for competition or protection of cubs or over a kill is low as they are outnumbered. The probability of fight or no fight depends on the situation. So, most encounters will be avoided by solitary predatorial species.

If those lions were also solitary too then, they too will compete similar in ecology as top predator with sabers and tigers. So, there were still possibilities to fight and not all fight leads to death, some can be intimidations or some can be chase always or some can be only fights not deaths.

Over all Mortality rate between inter-species competition and other natural causes (except man) balances natality rate of population, that's how the world's predators coexist since life origin and nature works in ecology and food web.


If you are talking about true tiger ancestors which are also tigers like (Longdan tiger) Panthera zdanskyi, Panthera aff. tigris, Panthera cf. tigris, and other "true" tiger spp like trinil, bornean, japanese, ngandong etc.., They were never coexisted with lions.

In fact, when first three species, lived lions not even existed or originated in Africa. LOL.

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