Lion-tiger co-existence an interplay of their different ecological and behavioural adaptations, rather than an internecine conflict, it says
The British Lion fights the Tiger of Mysore in this famous depiction of the British victory over Tipu Sultan at Srirangapatna in 1799. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
It is something that wildlife afficiandos love to imagine: Lions and tigers, two of the biggest extant felids. Who is stronger? Who would win if they happen to cross paths?
In reality, the two biggest Big Cats would avoid each other if they met. The two species have, in fact, shared habitats across Asia for centuries.
Today, though, they are found together in the wild in only one country: India. Here too, their geography-specific habitats means that they no longer occur in the same localities.
Still, Asiatic lions (Panthera leo leo) and Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) have done so in the past. “Their co-existence is an interplay of their different ecological and behavioural adaptations rather than an internecine conflict between the species,” notes a recently published paper.
‘Sympatry’ in biology usually relates to two related species (both lions and tigers belong to the family Felidae) which exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another.
“As per Gauss’s exclusion principle, two sympatric species that compete for the same resources cannot coexist in a stable manner and one will eventually outcompete the other (Hardin 1960). But just a century or two earlier, the two biggest extant felid species i.e., the lion (Panthera leo) and the tiger (Panthera tigris) had overlapping geographical distributional ranges through much of Western, Central and Southern Asia,” Clash of the titans — a comprehensive historical account on the interactions between lions and tigers from 19th century British-India by wildlife historian Shashank Yadav notes.
While the Asiatic lion and Bengal tiger co-existed in the Subcontinent, the now-extinct Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) did so with the Asiatic lion in Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The British, who ruled for 200 years over the Indian Subcontinent (1757-1947), observed and documented this co-existence.
Afrotropical vs Indo-Malayan
Yadav notes that Asiatic lions and Bengal tigers, while ‘ecological equivalents of each other’, have existed in different parts of the Subcontinent.
The lion has usually ruled over the Northwest, west and northern parts of South Asia.
Lions, along with cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), wolves (Canis lupus), hyenas (Hyaena hyaena), antelopes, wild ass (Equus hemionus) and aurochs (Bos primigenius) were likely the characteristic fauna of the more arid and open parts belonging to the Afrotropical biogeographical realm, a characteristic of the western part of the Indian subcontinent, according to Yadav.
The tigers, along with leopards, wild dogs, deer and gaur were common to dense forests, representing the Indo-Malayan realm.
“Together, both these floral-faunal complexes interacted throughout much of India. However, the competition between lions and tigers was restricted only to northern India,” according to the paper.
However, these interactions possibly occurred only around the edges of their preferred habitats.
The most interesting places of co-habitation are found in what is today’s state of Gujarat. It is now the only place on the planet where Asiatic lions are found in the wild. The tiger, on the other hand, no longer occurs in the state though once in a while, one often comes across reports of individuals from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Maharashtra making appearances along the hilly and forested eastern border of the state, the so-called Poorvi Patti.
Thus, the Gulf of Khambhat and the bulk of northern and central Gujarat usually separates the two species now. But this was not the case in the colonial period, according to the paper.
“The local presence of both species around areas earmarked for hunting was known to the British officers. Edward Backhouse Eastwick made a very pertinent statement about the jungles around Deesa in Gujarat where the wilderness around the drainage of the Banas river harboured both the lion and tiger, considered as a rare occurrence (Eastwick 1849),” it says.
The paper also recounts a hunting party of British army officers looking for lions in Kheda, central Gujarat, around 1799, only to be surprised by a tiger.
Do British records tell us of spotting more tigers in those areas of Gujarat where the species is no longer found?
“My paper doesn’t specifically deal with the distribution of tigers in Gujarat but these locations tell us that they were largely found in forests along the larger rivers, like the Sabarmati and its supporting smaller ones like the Vatrak,” Yadav told Down To Earth.
Did the British ever note any instance of hybridisation between lions and tigers in India? Were there ever any ligers or tigons in the wilds of British India? “Not as per my knowledge,” said Yadav.
And for those who would be wanting to know who won ‘battles’ between the tiger and lion in British India, well, it is the lion.
“Peregrine Herne (1855), reported a first-hand visual account of a direct interaction between the two species. In the jungles around Bharuch and Surat, he suddenly chanced upon a lion and a tiger engaged in battle. Though the tiger was quicker in his movements, but the mane of the lion covered the vulnerable parts of its head and its neck. Nonetheless, the lion’s side and hack were torn up by the tiger’s claws. The lion however, got the hold of the tiger’s throat. After which the game was over for the tiger,” the paper relates.
However, the two species may have usually not have had such battles.
“Of the 41 species of wild cats (Kitchener et al. 2017), except for the coalitions of male cheetahs, only lions live in social groups of prides, and it is unlikely that a tiger would risk injury standing up to a pride of lions or a coalition of two or more males,” according to the paper.
Predator-heavy ‘trophic guilds’ were common during the Plestiocene Epoch. Think of sabre-toothed cats, dire wolves and cave bears existing together.
Similar instances of sympatric predators are seen till today, with brown bears, gray wolves, and lynx inhabiting parts of Europe and North America as well as the brown bear and Amur tiger in the Russian Far East. What should be the basic conditions for sympatry to occur in Nature?
“Even these guilds are only a shadow of what they were in the Pleistocene. Largely, complex carnivore guilds depend on upon the diversity of habitats which supports the prey species of different sizes. The more variable the prey size, the more types of carnivores a land can support,” concluded Yadav.
The paper has been published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society.
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