Talk:Lion
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[edit] how they kill their prey
Is there any reference to back up the line "The prey is usually killed by a bite into the nape or throat." This page: http://www.african-lion.org/lions_e.htm states "usually killing it by strangulation or suffocation, showing incredible strength in doing so." Just noticed the differences when reading, if its incorrect someone please update it :) - anonymous 07:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] second largest big cat?
According to the article, lions are "the second largest feline species, after the tiger", though that article says that the tiger is "the second largest and most powerful feline species in the world, after the lion." I'm sure both articles are using different sources, but it seems like they should either agree, or at least not contradict one another. Of course, there's always the possibility that it's not really important. Ultranaut 20:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
LION VS TIGER DEBATE ON SIZE OK, I'm going to clear it all up for you. There are 5 speices of Tiger and all 5 vary greatly in size. The Lion on the other hand is for the most part the same weather it's African or Asian. So the debate an be solved by looking at the following options:
THE LION: The Lion rangers from 330 to 550 lb. An average fully grown male can be estimated to be in the low 400's.
THE TIGER: The Tiger rangers greatly from the smallest Sumatrans that can be as low as 220 lb to the largest Siberians that can reach up to 700 lb. on average (and maximum records) both the Siberian Tiger and the Bengral Tiger are bigger than the Lion. The other 3 species are smaller.
CONCLUSION: If you count each subspecie separately, then the largest of the natural cats in the wild right now is the Siberian Tiger (averaging in the low 500s). The second largest is the Bengal Tiger (averaging in the low 490s). The third largest is the African Lion (averaging in the low 400s). That's just the way that it is. Now if you were to look at the two species as a whole, not taking into account the Tiger's vast size ranger, then the two SPECIES average the same. 220 to 700 lb averages about 460 lb for the Tiger species. 330 to 550 lb averages about 440 lb. Again, you can debate and nitpick records, but on average the two SPECIES can both be classified at around 450 lb each.
TO FIX THE LION AND TIGER ARTICLES In order to satisfy the Lion and the Tiger fans, I would recomend writing the size reference as follows for each section:
LION SECTION: In size the lion is only surpassed by the two largest species of tiger.
TIGER SECTION: Due to the size reached by its two largest species, the tiger is credited as the biggest feline in the world.
"Their diet consists of little children."
? If they have been known to attack and kill (human?) children for food, fine, but the wording of this sentence is just strange because it sounds like their diet is mostly children.
[edit] Felis or Pantera?
Here: http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/felis+leo, the lion is identified as Felis Leo. That coincides with my 9th grade biology class (1984).
On this page, the lion is identified as Pantera Leo. What's going on?
--Mrfelis 03:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The Lion is a Panthera. It is one of the 4 roaring cats.
[edit] Lion and tiger size -cape buffalo
I disagree on 1: You forgot the indochinese, a forgotten tiger subspecies, which grows to bengal-like size. It's never been a focus of tiger study due to its rarity and political difficulties in its region. In fact, I have watched documentary which dismisses the distinction between 2 subspecies. So what it means: Siberian > Bengal ~ Indochinese > lion > sumatra. The indochinese is also particularly aggressive.
By the way, is there any proof that lion can kill adult buffalo alone? I would like to know —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.220.146.21 (talk) 10:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC).
I did not forget about the Indochinese:
At best, the Indochinese is the the same size as the lion, if not smaller. The general consesus is that only the Siberian and Bengal are larger than the African Lion. Further more, the Indochinese size does not effect the ranger of the Tiger species. The list should got like this:
1. Siberian Tiger 2. Bengal Tiger 3. African Lion 4. Indochinese Tiger & Asian Lion
Buffalo Issue: I have NEVER seen a lone male lion killing a full grown Cape buffalo. Now, that's not to say that they can't. But that would be a rarity. Cats are cats, not super-animals. This also applies to the Tiger. All the crap that's written how 1 tiger can take down a full grown Gaur. Some fools even claim that 1 tiger can bring down an elephant!!! LMAO! The fact is, there is no photo or video evidence of a singe male lion or tiger bringing down anything larger than a deer (or wilderbeast/zebra in lion's case). That's a fact. A full grown buffalo would be too much for any cat to take on solo. Again, not to say it can't happen as there are always exceptions, but logic is logic. And a cat is a cat.
As I said, the studies on indochinese tigers are really limited, no wild indo. tiger has been measured; the weights are taken from captive specimens. So if you choose to belive the article, it's fine, but it's biased(btw, I already read that article long time ago). One documentary I have watched about tiger said there is no indochinese tiger. Bengal and indochinese both belong to the mainland subspecies. It explained the fact that quite a few indochinese tiger skins well over 3m in total length, and some killed specimen that weighed over 300 kg. These data are nowhere on the internet, though.
About predation, I searched alot on youtube, but couldn't find any. I think a tiger can kill a buffalo or a gaur, but by no mean easily; only the most experienced tigers will take them on. If you speak of video, no doc. about Bengal tiger has been made outide ranthambore and bandhavgarh NP( the NG guys really suck), where buffaloes, rhinos and gaurs don't exist. I guess cos' of tiger's elusive nature, plus its very low number, it's much harder to film than lions, the ratio of lion/tiger doc. must be about 20/1. But I have a few photos of gaur kill, and below is one of them.
http://flickr.com/photos/anilbapat/136765610/
Looking at the head and horns, this must be a very large gaur. Btw, I don't think people should consider tiger or lion merely "big cats"; it's an insult to them. Even if a domestic cat grows to the size of lion/tiger, it's nothing like them, a cat is a cat, yes; but a tiger or a lion is no cat. They just look like one, the same way we are no monkey.
Indo-Chinese Tiger issue. Not having wild speciments to measure is the reason for the exadurations in size. Captive animals are MUCH bigger in weight (fat) than the wild counterparts. So yeah, I'm sure they found a 300 kg Indo-Chinese, but same can be said for Captive Lions as well. Just like with the Siberian Tiger. There have always been the 700 lb/320 kg exadurations. In reality (studies have confirmed this many times) the wild Siberian Tigers are around 500 lb. In fact, no wild Siberian Tiger measured in the last 20 years have been over 550 lb. That's a fact. The old hunting stories that claim 700 lb tigers can't be taken as facts.
Buffal Hunting. I have been debeting this issue on Tigers for years. I've read a lot of books and seen a lot videos. In the end, there is not concrete proof that a Tiger can kill a full grown Buffalo or a Gaur. NONE. Pictures like you shown don't really prove a kill. It may have been an old animal that died on it's own and a tiger fed on it. Maybe it was sick or injured and no effort was needed to bring it down. Regardless, I've never seen any proof that 1 Tiger can kill a healthy, full grown buffalo. Look at the lions! I mean, it takes several females or AT LEAST 2 males to bring one Buffalo down! It is silly to assume that 1 tiger can do something that takes a group of lions to do. It's just as rediculous as the claims that a tiger would attack a rhino or an elephant. That's just dumb. The only time I've EVER seen an elephant (full grown) brought down was by a whole pride of lions (and there were a couple dozen of them!). 1 Tiger can't do that.
My friend, your argument captive animal larger than wild is not always true. I've seen a siberian tiger in the local zoo, and it turned out to weigh only 180kg, a male. Wild animal with abundant food grows huger than those in zoo, as in the case of northern Indian tigers, which surpass any other tigers, incl. Siberian in size, with one weighed as much as 388kg, that's an utopia for wild cats. And when I talked about a 320kg indochinese, it's a wild too, killed in 1958. Ther's only a handful of captive indochinese tigers if you care; and the weights are therefore,biased. Who knows about the origin of that tiny captive population? And regard Siberian, well, it's the 2nd largest feline in the world, after the North indian race. A siberian weighs an average of 230kg, that's obvious. I don't know from where you got the figure no wild siberian tiger exceeding 550lb from, the same way some people say Bengal stops at 258kg. Well, siberian tigers can go as much as 295kg, as confirmed by Igor paelanov, a leading authority on Siberian, please read the book:tiger in the snow for that. the largest cat of course is the tiger of North india, which can surpass 360kg and averages 250kg for male. But, according to so-called scientific journals, they come second!!Sounds great!
And now, predation. My main subject here is the size, so this will be my last talk on predation, to avoid starting another tiger lion comparison. Well, for the professional wildlife photographers, it's easy to distinguish btw kill and eaten carcass. And a gaur of that size(look at the head), well, be objective, must be extremely powerful! Tigers do kill gaur, and adult, though rarely, that's what the observation and feces analysis in Bandipur and Nagarhole NP have concluded. Why there's no documentary? I said above already, and documentary is not the only way to prove one thing. You really think when wwf pusblishes a newsletter, they love the issue of tiger owning lion so much that they decide to exaggerate the tiger's deed by saying it has killed a mother rhino? How about the guys who discover that indochinese tigers majorly hunt banteng ,a cape buffalo-sized ox in Laos? A lion pride is a single entity, don't take them individually. To say that a tiger can't kill a 1500 kg gaur or rhino that would take a pride of lions is really... Is that a rule? What do you base on to come up with such idea? Well, I don't mean to offend you, so if you find my word offensive, please be a bit forgiving, I really don't mean it. Lastly, you might find the following news and reports mostly...educational:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/050528/43/5yq31.html //tigress fights bull elephant in north india, the latter dies from injury. Coincidentally, the tusker killed by a tiger in the late 1950s was also in northern india. http://www.savethetigerfund.org/AM/TemplateRedirect.cfm?template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=2225 //indochinese hunts banteng in Laos http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/asia_pacific/where/nepal/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=18912 //mother rhino killed by tiger, wwf takes care of calf. Well, actually a mother rhino is less than a gaur bull, so this deed is trivial. gaur bull = rhino bull. http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/raonline/pages/np/tour/nptour_chitw02b.html#rhino02 //3 rhinoes were killed by tiger, also in chitwan
[edit] Population decrease . . . why?
Now, most of the population lives in eastern and southern Africa, and their numbers are rapidly decreasing, estimated as between 16,000 and 30,000 living in the wild, down from an estimated 100,000 in the early 1990s. In addition, the remaining populations are often geographically isolated from each other, which can lead to inbreeding, and consequently, a lack of genetic diversity.
Why is this happening? What has been going on over the past 15 years to cause the population to plummet? We need an explanation. Funnyhat 20:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Roitr
I suggest someone in the know to take a close look to this diff [1] made by Reboti (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log). It looks like an unconditional revert to some earlier version, typical for long-term vandal WP:LTA/Roitr who seems to have a particular obsession with this article, among many others. --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 14:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Feline aids
Most male lions have been exposed to a feline form of HIV, but show no symptoms, this is curently being researched as a possible cure for human AIDS.
I have removed this sentence from the article as it makes a number of assertions and is completely unsupported by references. I suggest it not be readded until reliable sources can be found to confirm this. WjBscribe 00:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a source at the moment, but it is true for the Filine AIDS. My cat has that and I spoke with the Vet about it. I don't know about research on human aids, but the lion is the only species of cat that is know to live comfortably with AIDS. It's dowright imune to it. Again, I never heard anything about using that to cure human aids, but it maybe possible to create something for the feline AIDS based on the lion's resistance.
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