Felids Interactions - Interspecific Conflicts

[Jimmy]

what I always believed is that, the smaller feline although vastly inferior in terms of power to its larger brethren can still have one advantage, it can fight on all fours i.e. use its bottom legs due to it being shorter, But there is big IF, If the larger cat is inexperience and tries to outmuscle solely by pinning smaller cat by using it's brute strength and front limbs, it could lend itself to a fatal positioning by exposing it's belly, I thought this on brown bear/ tiger interaction as well. While bigger animal has more strength and can outmuscle its  opponent into choice manuver, less experience cat or bear for that matter might get a little careless, it's little hard to explain so I made a drawing

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On no.1 a larger say tigress subdues a male leopard but, leopard can thrust it's hind legs from this position, tigress is fighting with two front limbs plus fangs. While leopard is fighting on all fours or at least trying to.
On no.2 a more experience tiger control it's opppnent, gets the throat and keeps distance nullyfying the leopards trailing legs.

So for me it's like smaller cats uses all fours while bigger cat uses front limbs for control. Of course most of the times the larger animal with itsitmore power always controls his opponent to get the best position but this I think is the reason why smaller cats could be deadly defensively and larger cat seems to know this. Ever seen leopard goes belly up instantly while a larger lioness reluctently goes away!!! Reply