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Post by King Kodiak on Aug 25, 2020 14:48:04 GMT -5
I was very happy when Taker found out about this. The Barren ground grizzly is almost 100 lbs heavier on average than we thought. This means basically at weight parity with lions, even a little heavier by 25 lbs on average taking into account both extant lion subspecies combined.
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Post by brobear on Sept 2, 2020 4:48:24 GMT -5
All here has watched the video of the female sloth bear who managed to defend herself from the prime male dominate tiger ( at least double her own weight ) long enough until the tiger was too exhausted to continue fighting. We have also watched as a lion is ( regrettably ) placed in an enclosure with an Asiatic black bear. During this entire event, the bear stands his ground; never once retreating. The lion, meanwhile, continues to seek an escape with repeated attacks aimed at the bear. But, as with the tiger and the sloth bear, the lion is unable to get past the bear's defenses. A brown bear is per-size stronger than any other living bear species. Most brown bear subspecies ( with the Himalayan brown bear as the only exception ) are more aggressive than a sloth bear or a black bear. Brown bears ( IMO from observation ) seem to fight each other more than other bear species. At weight-parity; I will always give a bear ( any species ) a 50-50 against a big cat ( any species ). But when the bear has a weight advantage of 100 pounds or better - then the fight becomes a mismatch. Especially when the bear is a brown bear.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 2, 2020 7:15:01 GMT -5
So the Himalayan brown bear is not only the most passive of the brown bears but they take longer than others to become independent - staying with their mothers up to five years.
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Post by brobear on Sept 12, 2020 3:51:16 GMT -5
Comparison between an Asiatic lion and a sloth bear (frontal views); both specimens were scaled to their average shoulder heights accordingly; tell me what you think! The Big Question yet unanswered: will we see this happen?
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 12, 2020 4:37:21 GMT -5
I believe the sloth bear will react in a defensively aggressive way but the Asiatic lion will end up the winner.
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Post by brobear on Sept 12, 2020 5:55:28 GMT -5
I believe the sloth bear will react in a defensively aggressive way but the Asiatic lion will end up the winner. Which means that you believe that the lion will behave differently from a tiger.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 12, 2020 6:16:12 GMT -5
I believe the sloth bear will react in a defensively aggressive way but the Asiatic lion will end up the winner. Which means that you believe that the lion will behave differently from a tiger. I also believe a tiger will beat a sloth bear in a fight to death. Anyway, you and I agree that the lion is bolder. Of course the Bengal tiger is heavier and stronger than an Asiatic lion.
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Post by brobear on Sept 12, 2020 11:43:17 GMT -5
Which means that you believe that the lion will behave differently from a tiger. I also believe a tiger will beat a sloth bear in a fight to death. Anyway, you and I agree that the lion is bolder. Of course the Bengal tiger is heavier and stronger than an Asiatic lion. I have never doubted that a tiger can kill a sloth bear in a fight-to-the-death. However, we only have two videos of a tiger even attempting to fight an adult sloth bear face-to-face. 9 times out of 10, when the bear stands his ground, the tiger walks away. But in both cases where the tiger actually fought the bear, the tiger was a prime male tiger and the bear was a she-bear less than half the tiger's weight. Of these two fights, only one tiger was successful and killed the bear. In the other event, the little she-bear was able to defend herself until the tiger was too exhausted to continue the fight. *How things will work-out with a lion, I hope to learn.
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Post by malikc6 on Sept 12, 2020 12:52:18 GMT -5
Giving this one to the lion considering that persistent hungry tigers prey on these bears. These bears are strong but not quite as powerful as their black and brown cousins. And yes a lion would be less likely to flee if an aggressive interaction took place. A sloth bear seeing off a lion wouldn't be as common as the tiger running off. Cats are ambush predators but some more than others. I know this isn't tiger vs lion but it's pretty obvious that a tiger specializes more with ambushing prey than actually hunting and fighting in a head on collision. It would take an exceptionally big male sloth bear to win. Even at equal weights and sizes I still give this to the lion, but that particular scenario would be no easy fight.
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Post by brobear on Sept 12, 2020 13:14:16 GMT -5
In a face-to-face fight to the death, I hold no fantasy of the sloth bear killing the lion. Even if it were to happen; a fluke. But the big question is; when the sloth bear stands his ground, will the lion decide to fight a bear face-to-face or will he decide to walk away and go hunting? We can cover page-after-page with speculation. But I'm hoping for some real-time observation. The relocation of some Asiatic lions. Will it happen?
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 13, 2020 8:25:58 GMT -5
Reply 96, I hope to see an interaction between the Asiatic lion and a sloth bear actually happen too.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Sept 13, 2020 8:27:08 GMT -5
Lion comparison.
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Post by brobear on Oct 16, 2020 6:51:43 GMT -5
The only bear that an Asiatic lion is likely to ever come into contact with in India is the little sloth bear and only if Asiatic lions are ever allowed more living space.
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Post by brobear on Oct 16, 2020 6:54:44 GMT -5
An Asiatic lion taking on a sloth bear.
This meeting might happen some day...
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Post by brobear on Oct 17, 2020 4:45:20 GMT -5
Simply put, big cats don't do well against bears. Cats are, by nature, ambush predators. Granted, lions, especially the male, is more prone to taking on an antagonist in a non-ambush fight than other big cats. This is due to his shaggy black mane. As a hunter, attempting to stalk prey with that mane is like hunting while carrying a red flag. But I have noticed that even the lion, when hunting large prey, such as buffalo, even though the big bovine knows the lion is there, the lion stalks him in an ambush predator manner; stealthily sneaking around to attack from one side. The big cats simply don't know how to get through the bear's defenses. I have watched numerous videos of a tiger faced by a female sloth bear ( less than half his own weight ) and in only one single such event was the tiger able to break through the little bear's defenses and kill the bear. I have watched a video of a lion trapped within an enclosure with an Asiatic black bear ( Reply #22 ). During the entire episode, the bear stood his ground defensively. The lion tried on several attempts to fight with the bear, but to no avail. The lion wanted to retreat, continuously seeking an escape. It will be interesting to see how well an Asiatic lion does when ( or if ) he first meets the sloth bear in the wild.
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Post by theundertaker45 on Oct 17, 2020 7:00:07 GMT -5
Lions are smart; if the two coexisted, they wouldn't face a male sloth bear on their own. Most of the time they don't even face their intraspecific rivals on their own and gang up on them; there would be 2 or 3 lions facing a sloth bear the vast majority of the time. Being a full time carnivore is a risky occupation, one injury could ruin everything as male Asiatic lions follow a strict hierarchy and an injured individual would surely be pushed right down the order. The mentality of a sloth bear is much more rugged as he isn't reliant on catching strong/swift prey items; he could have a broken leg and would still be able to suck up his termites. That's why I believe that we wouldn't see many solo matchups between the two in the wild and if a bold lion dared to attack a male sloth bear on his own, he would soon realize that it's not worth going in for the kill against such an extremely dangerous and durable opponent.
With that being said, in a face-off where both individuals are dead set on killing each other, I'd favour the lion by a comfortable margin due to his size advantage.
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Post by brobear on Oct 17, 2020 23:33:19 GMT -5
Just as we all agree on in the topic, "Bears surviving in Africa", even if brown bears lived among lions, the lion would remain at the top of the food chain for one simple reason; numbers. The advantage of numbers outweigh such advantages as weight, strength, stamina, durability, etc. If lions are tossed into a location populated by sloth bears, the little shaggy bears will learn, in time, that a lion is seldom alone. He would then ( IMO ) adjust his survival strategy. But I agree with all said in reply #56 above. Fights between lions and bears would not likely be commonplace events.
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Post by brobear on Oct 24, 2020 4:50:37 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Oct 27, 2020 3:21:44 GMT -5
www.beringia.com/exhibit/ice-age-animals/beringian-lion The Beringian lion (Panthera leo spelaea) was the largest and most abundant cat of ice age Yukon, and a member of the well-known "cave lions" from Europe and Asia. Lion fossil bones from Beringia are smaller than the rest of the European cave lions, suggesting that they could be a seperate sub-species. *These lions once shared their environment with the Pleistocene grizzly.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Oct 27, 2020 3:41:33 GMT -5
It seems the Beringian lion has a smaller bone structure than the cave lion just like the brown bear has a smaller bone structure than the cave bear.
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