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BODY LANGUAGE AS A TOOL TO COMMUNICATE
BODY LANGUAGE AS A TOOL TO COMMUNICATE
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BODY LANGUAGE AS A TOOL TO COMMUNICATE
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"The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. " No, submission is different, much different. See that picture with body postures above. When tiger flattens body to the ground, he is on alert, awaiting an attack. Which makes sense in context of the situation. And when he finally lies on the ground (in 1:02), his message is "leave me alone". But the lion did not respect that, so the tiger chased him away...so what submission?
Somewhat similar situation. After victorious skirmish, the tiger follows the lion in a self-confident way...
 (04-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: "The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. " No, submission is different, much different. See that picture with body postures above. When tiger flattes body to the ground, he is on alert, awaiting an attack. Which makes sense in context of the situation. And when he finally lies on the ground, his message is "leave me alone". But the lion did not respect that, so the tiger chased him away...so what submission? Ok I'm not gonna start another lion vs tiger endless back and forth on here. But lowering the head and sticking to the ground is classical submissive behavior, the tiger is not looking to attack otherwise it would be standing up with its shoulders high and his head straight to accept the challenge. The lion in that video also has a problem with his hind legs and even with that, it fended off nicely in standing position against the tiger. That is my conclusion about that video.
"lowering the head and sticking to the ground is classical submissive behavior" - biased, non-biased...this is simply wrong. Felids are not dogs :-) Well, tigers position in 1:02 can be perhaps described as slighty submissive (in some sense), but in a friendly, peacefull way "cmnon...leave me alone, I dont want to fight, I just want to have a rest". But this is actually not what I call a submission, since the tiger is obviously not scared (as you confirmed), actually in 1:03 the tiger got somewhat pissed and the lion leaves the place...and the tiger follows him (like escorting repulsed rival out of the territory). And in other parts of the video we can see the tiger in positions I mentioned above "on alert, awaiting an attack" (by lowering the head and body)...and this is not submission at all.
"the tiger is not looking to attack " - yes. The tiger is not looking to attack. But that does not mean that he is submissive. He is not aggressive. But he seems to be self - confident. "The lion in that video also has a problem with his hind legs" - nah, he is rather slipping on the mud...perhaps one leg is slightly injureded...but he seems to have basically no problem when he runs...anyway, the condition of lions hindlegs (or reasons why he lost that skirmish) is not the issue, the issue is interpretation of that situation/body language. "it fended off nicely in standing position against the tiger" - what i see is that the tiger easily repelled the lion by that hit in 0:17 (the only real hit made by both in that skirmish). In 0:16 we can see that the lion grazed the face of the tiger a bit. Then the tiger goes into 2 - point stance, blocks the attempts of the lion and then finishes the skirmish by real hit. Then the lion leaves the place and the tiger follows him. Crystal clear. Anyway, thank you for your replies and for sharing your point of view. Obviously I dont agree with some of your points, but I dont think anything negative about your opinion.
" I didn't see the lion as nervous but rather frustrated and stressed" - this is interesting. Could you describe how do you see the difference between "nervous" and "frustrated and stressed" please? Im just interested in your point of view.
" They're in a horrible small enclosure so it makes sense they will be frustrated." - this is also not true. There are videos from that enclosure when they are completely cool. The enclosure is not the problem, the reason for the behaviour of the lion (who is otherwise a friend of that tiger) is a female :-) And you can see that in this video the tiger and tigress are not "frustrated" (as you say), the lion is the only one who behaves like that :-) BTW lot of people think that felids need huge enclosure. In fact they need much less space than most people think (other things are important for them).
See the body language of the tiger (posture, tail) at the end of the video...
 (04-25-2020, 02:04 AM)OncaAtrox Wrote:(04-25-2020, 01:59 AM)Amnon242 Wrote:(04-25-2020, 01:51 AM)OncaAtrox Wrote:(04-25-2020, 01:45 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: What do you think about this situation? Is the tiger afraid of the lion? Or does he find him annoying but not really dangerous? Or anything else? Lowering the head and body is far from submission actually, its more of a defensive position. These cats after all, don't live together, they also didn't grow up together and totally don't live in captivity where they have no real reason to fight. Quote:"Leyhausen also indicated that aggression in felids is more regulated by effective defenses than responsive to the submission signals that are quite effective in reducing intra-group fighting in many canid species, such as wolves and dogs. By selecting animals and arranging situations, Leyhausen was able to polarize attack and defensive behaviors in domesticated cat subjects, or, alternatively, to maximize attack motivations for both combatants. In a highly polarized attack-defend situation, the attacker stands tall and advances directly toward the victim while emitting low growls. The defending animal crouches down, or, with a mixture of aggressive and fearful motives, may assume the classic “Halloween cat” stance with arched back, and erected hairs. As the attacker approaches contact, the defending animal may assume a contorted posture, half on its back but facing the other cat, enabling both fore- and hindpaws to be drawn up and opposed to the oncoming attacker. This stance conceals the nape, the major target site for intraspecific offensive attack. Both fore- and hindpaws may lash out at the attacker and disembowelment of the attacker is possible, particularly if it attempts to reach over to bite at the partly supine defender's nape. However, when both animals are highly motivated to attack, a frontal approach is typically utilized by both, resulting in animals facing each other and delivering forepaw blows largely toward the head and neck of the other."https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814555/ On house cats. Quote:Threats and aggression can be either offensive or defensive. An offensively aggressive cat tries to make himself look bigger and more intimidating, whereas a defensively aggressive cat adopts a self-protective posture and tries to make himself look smaller. The following are typical postures seen in feline aggression. A rule of thumb is to not touch, attempt to reassure, or punish cats showing these postures!" https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/cat-care/...ssion-cats I bet you would say this tiger is submitting to the humans too.  (04-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: "The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. " No, submission is different, much different. See that picture with body postures above. When tiger flattens body to the ground, he is on alert, awaiting an attack. Which makes sense in context of the situation. And when he finally lies on the ground (in 1:02), his message is "leave me alone". But the lion did not respect that, so the tiger chased him away...so what submission? In case of this duo the tiger is much larger & stronger, so his confidence shows... but that lion always initiates (or initiated, i heard they finally separated them). My guess is he tries too hard to look dominant. But while the head bowing for tigers is definitely a defensive posture, offering cease-hostility or warning to back off, the crouching is definitely submissive... in both species. Especially because females & juveniles do that when challenged by males. Otherwise what do you consider to tigers' posturing of submission?.. Do present an example. (04-25-2020, 02:04 AM)OncaAtrox Wrote: The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. I didn't see the lion as nervous but rather frustrated and stressed which then translated to aggression. Unlike lions, it seems to me that submissive behavior in tigers is quite aggressive, constantly lashing out to ward off the dominant one posturing before it. In these kind of faceoffs I've noted that the dominant tiger doesn't intend to start a bout either, turning sideways and circling around, then disengaging. Maybe they're wired that way in order to avoid unnecessary injuries, that may prove life-threatening for solitary predators. Quite pointless endeavour IMO. People are going to to interpret whatever they want in whatever ways suit their stand. And neutral objective analysis, is even harder to do for interspecies interactions with different social dynamics. Anyways guys, try not to make this thread look like YouTube comment section or a shitposting forum. (04-25-2020, 01:05 PM)Dennis Wrote: She's always quick to call people bias that have a different opinion from her, making her the most bias of them all :) I know her from the Carnivora forum... (04-25-2020, 02:16 AM)OncaAtrox Wrote: ...and I know you're biased towards the tiger so it would be pointless. This stuff is not tolerated here... If you're entering the conversation with intention of convincing all others to agree with your opinions, you should be prepared for disappointment. Say what you have to say & move on. Requesting all new members to refrain from personal comments & character analysis.  (04-25-2020, 02:16 AM)OncaAtrox Wrote:(04-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: "The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. " No, submission is different, much different. See that picture with body postures above. When tiger flattes body to the ground, he is on alert, awaiting an attack. Which makes sense in context of the situation. And when he finally lies on the ground, his message is "leave me alone". But the lion did not respect that, so the tiger chased him away...so what submission? Not always, especially in a Tigers case. (04-25-2020, 02:24 PM)Rishi Wrote:(04-25-2020, 01:05 PM)Dennis Wrote: She's always quick to call people bias that have a different opinion from her, making her the most bias of them all :) I know her from the Carnivora forum... Thank You Rishi. But on the other hand I think that I tried too hard to prove that Im right and he is wrong...so its not black/white (04-25-2020, 12:32 PM)Rishi Wrote:(04-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: "The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. " No, submission is different, much different. See that picture with body postures above. When tiger flattens body to the ground, he is on alert, awaiting an attack. Which makes sense in context of the situation. And when he finally lies on the ground (in 1:02), his message is "leave me alone". But the lion did not respect that, so the tiger chased him away...so what submission? I think its good to see that the thread started to "live" In understanding the body language the context is very important. In this situation we see that the tiger is not afraid of the lion, but also does not want to fight. To me it seems that he finds the lion rather annoying than really dangerous. Imagine they are humans: I see that lion as a 180 cm tall choleric psychopath (no offence), while the tiger is like 190 cm phlegmatic. His body posture in 1.02 is therfore not "please dont hurt me, I give up", but as I said "I dont want to fight, leave me alone"...especially when he chased the lion away in 1:03. How do tigers actually submit? You can see it in the video of Kingtheropod I posted couple of weeks ago. Or you can see it at the picture (scheme) with body postures. Or I would say that they simply run away. But once again: CONTEXT. "My guess is he tries too hard to look dominant." - AFAIK there are friends, no one is dominating to the other, but problem rises when lions are in heat - the lion is controlled by his aggression. (04-25-2020, 04:25 PM)Pckts Wrote:(04-25-2020, 02:16 AM)OncaAtrox Wrote:(04-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: "The tiger lowers its head and sticks to the ground which is typical submissive behavior. " No, submission is different, much different. See that picture with body postures above. When tiger flattes body to the ground, he is on alert, awaiting an attack. Which makes sense in context of the situation. And when he finally lies on the ground, his message is "leave me alone". But the lion did not respect that, so the tiger chased him away...so what submission? That video actually solidified my point, the larger tiger is clearly dominant over the other one, they both stand in a neutral position in the ground before the tigress gets close to the larger one (which I'm guessing is Umarpani) and his instincts drive him to fight the other male that is lying on the ground submissive. The smaller male never initiates the fight from its lying down position, he only does it to defend himself. After the altercation the male that was already submissive returns to its position by sticking to the ground showing a clear power dynamic between the two. |
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