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Are Tigers 'Brainier' Than Lions?
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Yes, "tigers" began to evolve about 3.2 million years ago, although until about 1.6-2 million years ago, all the early forms were only transitory and some of them even evolved in they own way, for example the Longdan "tiger" (Panthera zdanskyi). Even some early forms of this time in China, can't by distinguished from tigers or Panthera palaeosinensis!
So, in strict sense, the first 100% pure tigers arise about 1.6 million years in Java, while the early form of tiger in mainland probably was probably just suppressed or absorbed by this new Sonda alpha predator, that at the end, also suppressed the other pantherines like Panthera youngi and P. palaeosinensis, and also the saber cats like Homotherium sp. (with a little help of the climate, of course [img]images/smilies/wink.gif[/img]). 
Big cat breeder from Czech ZOO (25+ years of experience):
"O tygrech se rika, ze je z kocek nejinteligentnejsi. To muzu ze sve zkusenosti potvrdit. Jsou to osobnosti. Lev je spolecenstejsi, ale hloupejsi. Tygr je plachy, ale premyslivy. Duma nad tim, jak treba ziskat potravu." http://zlinsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/ty...91221.html "People say that tiger is the most intelligent cat. I can confirm that from my experience. They are personalities. Lion is more social, but dumber. Tiger is shy, but more thinking. For example he more thinks how to get the access to food."  (06-26-2014, 07:17 AM)'peter' Wrote:(06-25-2014, 08:09 PM)'chaos' Wrote: Until further research can provide conclusive evidence, it's all conjecture. Not disputing or supporting Looking to navigate my way as I go, let things develop naturally. Nice to see the forum picking up steam. Some interesting topics being offered up. Keep up the good work. All is well in my corner. Thanks Peter 
Starting a forum compares to starting a business: not easy and there's always many risks. You got to find your way step by step. We've only started in April this year and so far I'm happy.
I do also have the opinion that tigers, are more intelligent.
In the zoo where I work, we separate all the tigers, and also do the same with lions. All cats have their own feeding cage, and tigers do know that, even the new female learn that on only one mounth! So they line up and now the faster I close the gates, the faster they wil get food! While the lions are starting to argue and fight, and we have to lure them in to their separate cages, still and the oldest lions have been there for 7 years! 
If they wouldn't argue and fight would they do the same as the tigers? Each individual is different, I've seen very smart lions and very dumb lions, same goes for tigers. However I have to agree they sometimes do show more intelligence, if lions wouln't be so grumpy all the time they would probably look more intelligent! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]
 (06-30-2014, 07:15 PM)'TheLioness' Wrote: If they wouldn't argue and fight would they do the same as the tigers? Each individual is different, I've seen very smart lions and very dumb lions, same goes for tigers. However I have to agree they sometimes do show more intelligence, if lions wouln't be so grumpy all the time they would probably look more intelligent! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img] Thats the point of "intelligence", learning to take advantage of your enivronment. Adapting to your surroundings, etc.. I know you really like lions, but these are first hand expierence and observations that are specifically stating the Tigers being smarter, added with the larger brain. You can knit pick every single expierence and say "what ifs'' but this is a personal feeling overriding evidence, IMO. (06-30-2014, 10:07 PM)'Pckts' Wrote:(06-30-2014, 07:15 PM)'TheLioness' Wrote: If they wouldn't argue and fight would they do the same as the tigers? Each individual is different, I've seen very smart lions and very dumb lions, same goes for tigers. However I have to agree they sometimes do show more intelligence, if lions wouln't be so grumpy all the time they would probably look more intelligent! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img] Not for nothing Pockets, but I've yet to see you quote any lion expert in any respect to to any potential adv. There may be and probably are trainers, biologists, etc. who think they are on par or perhaps smarter than tigers. I myself, am of the belief intellect varies from individual to individual. The only fact is the larger brain. (06-30-2014, 10:26 PM)'chaos' Wrote:(06-30-2014, 10:07 PM)'Pckts' Wrote:(06-30-2014, 07:15 PM)'TheLioness' Wrote: If they wouldn't argue and fight would they do the same as the tigers? Each individual is different, I've seen very smart lions and very dumb lions, same goes for tigers. However I have to agree they sometimes do show more intelligence, if lions wouln't be so grumpy all the time they would probably look more intelligent! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img] Antle and Saffoee, both lion experts, both stated tigers being smarter. I am not going to win with you guys, its fine. But you're arguing against a much larger brain in two relatively similar sized animals that are extremely close genetically.
You can't say it any better pckts! It's not possible to prove, but tigs are most likely smarter and thats my opinion to, both by read about wild tigers and lions, aswell as work with lions and tigers.
Brain-to-body mass ratio, also known as the brain to body weight ratio, is the ratio of brain weight to body weight, which is hypothesised to be a rough estimate of the intelligence of an animal, although fairly inaccurate in many cases. A more complex measurement, encephalization quotient, takes into account allometric effects of widely divergent body sizes across several taxa.[3] The raw brain-to-body mass ratio is however simpler to come by, and is still a useful tool for comparing encephalization within species or between fairly closely related species.Comparisons between groupsDolphins have the highest brain-to-body weight ratio of all cetaceans.[7] Along with them, primates and elephants have the highest value among mammals. Monitor lizards, tegus and anoles and some tortoise species have the largest among reptiles. Among birds, the most intelligent are parrots, crows, magpies, jays and ravens. Among amphibians, the studies are still limited but thus far there are no remarkably intelligent species in this class. Either octopuses[8] or jumping spiders[9] have some of the highest for an invertebrate, although some ant species have 14%-15% of their mass in their brains, the highest value known for any animal. Sharks have one of the highest for fish alongside manta rays (although the electrogenic elephantfish has a ratio nearly 100 times higher - about 1/34, which is slightly higher than that for humans).[10] The tiny shrew, which holds about 10% of its body mass in its brain, has one of the highest brain-to-body mass ratio of any vertebrate.It is a trend that the larger the animal gets, the smaller the brain-to-body mass ratio. Large whales have very small brains compared to their weight, and small rodents like mice have a relatively large brain, giving the same brain-to-body mass ratio as a human.[1] One explanation could be that as an animal's brain gets larger, the size of the neural cells remains the same, and more nerve cells will cause the brain to increase in size to a lesser degree than the rest of the body. This phenomenon has been called the encephalization quotient; E = CS2, where E and S are body and brain weights and C is the cephalization factor.[8] Just focusing on the relationship between the body and the brain is not enough; one also has to consider the total size of the animal.In the essay "Bligh's Bounty",[11] Stephen Jay Gould noted that if one looks at vertebrates with very low encephalization quotient, their brains are slightly less massive than their spinal cords. Theoretically, intelligence might correlate with the absolute amount of brain an animal has after subtracting the weight of the spinal cord from the brain. This formula is useless for invertebrates because they do not have spinal cords, or in some cases, central nervous systems."
So, while not exact, it is certainly a very good indicater. Now when you take two similarly sized and genetically similar cats, but one has a 16% larger brain, that is a very meaningfull difference.  (05-25-2014, 09:49 PM)'TheLioness' Wrote: Speaking of brain size and intelligence, who do you believe to be the most intelligent little big cat? Cheetah, jaguar, leopard, puma, snow leopard, ect.Sorry if I express this idea badly (I'm french) but: leopards coexist with both lions and tigers. Lions and tigers are both superpredator within their biotops, perhaps they don't need to be as smart as the leopards are... The fact is: having to adapt oneself with a lot of much more powerful predators, (tigers and lions of course but also hyenas prides in Africa, bears, dholes prides in India) without counting men, the leopard is a very smart animal, I think. That is completely obvious when we look at animals documentaries. Thus, the brain size is not correlated to the real intelligence. (06-30-2014, 06:32 PM)'Pantherinae' Wrote: I do also have the opinion that tigers, are more intelligent.Yes I have watched the same behaviour... But in my mind that is only for one reason: the lions are social animals which always fight each other when they come to feed, always. That is in their genes. The fact you give them some food in captivity doesn't change anything, they act by being lions... The tigers being solitary animals don't never fight for eating food. When you see a couple of tigers in wild the strongest eats at first while the other one is waiting for its turn. |
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