Desert Lions

[GuateGojira]

(05-23-2015, 07:25 PM)Pantherinae Wrote: @GuateGojira if I'm not wrong here there where places where the tiger disapared and lions did not. Would have problems to think tigers would force away lions, not because lions are a stronger animal, but the fact that lions are living in groups. yes I know asiatic lions does not live such close to each other as their African cousins. And the prides lives more spread from each other, but I think that if tigers posed a threat to lone lions. the prides would gather and no other carnivore stands a chance against a lion pride. 

I agree with you Guate I think the climate and also hunting whiped out the lions as they live in the open they where probably a better target easier to hunt. Sad would be fun to see a place where the two biggest cats lived together. 

In fact, I had not say, nor implied, that tigers dispersed lions from India, I only mentioned that some people think so. My new personal idea is that climate is the true responsible of the nearly-extinction of the lions in India, or at least, the first contributor, with the humans been the second and final factor.

I am not aware of any part of India were tigers disappeared and lions thrived. In fact, it was the contrary. However, this is because lions were "older" in India, thanks to its dry climate until the beginning of the Holocene and the end of the last ice age. At this moment, India became the rich country, full of great jungles, that we now know, but this new territory was not suitable for the lions. Tiger, on the other hand, are tied to forest and water sources and manged to invade all the Indian subcontinent up to the Rajasthan dry forests but never lived in the dry areas of Kathiawar, and surely never in the Gir area. This dry forests are the last of the ancient lion habitat that covered the entire India, before the Holocene.

I hope this clarify my point, climate, not intraespecific fights, were the real responsible for changes in India prior the human intervention. :neutral-fill:

Just a side point, it is interesting that there is not a single story, poem, draw or anything about a lion vs tiger account in India, until the arrival of the British (the Mahabharata and the Ramayana mentions tigers fighting against other tigers, but tigers and lions in combat with one another are not mentioned). It seems that tigers and lions managed to live without conflicts and had a perfectly well separated habitat. It was the humans and they lust for fights, that had put them in conflict, and only in human-made areas. Nature is not as sick as the human mind. Reply