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Author Topic:   lion vs tiger
Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 53 of 91 (571744)
08-02-2010 6:42 AM


Tigers generally beat lions as they have bigger teeth and claws. However, genetically, these creatures are almost identical. They can mate and produce offspring. So it wouldn't surprise me if the odd lion could beat the odd tiger.
However, bears are more interesting. Bears are easily the most dangerous and ferocious of the predators. Tigers have been known to beat them though! It's rare for a bear to beat a lion or a tiger as bears typically run off as they are easily scared. Bears can easily scare tigers and lions away from a kill however.
Put them in a ring though and the bear wins everytime. History proves this.

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Wounded King, posted 08-02-2010 7:03 AM Big_Al35 has replied

  
Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 55 of 91 (571746)
08-02-2010 7:19 AM
Reply to: Message 54 by Wounded King
08-02-2010 7:03 AM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
I also don't really see the relevance of that to the occassional reversal of fortune you might see in a face off, that seem to me much more likely to be an issue of variability within populations rather than anything to do with relatedness
I never mentioned any relevance. I simply stated that it wouldn't surprise me if the odd lion could beat the odd tiger.
If you could suggest a pantherine cat that is more related to the tiger than a lion I would be intrigued to know.

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 Message 54 by Wounded King, posted 08-02-2010 7:03 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by Wounded King, posted 08-02-2010 7:59 AM Big_Al35 has replied

  
Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 57 of 91 (571759)
08-02-2010 9:02 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Wounded King
08-02-2010 7:59 AM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
The snow leopard. Conversely the leopard and the jaguar are both more closely related to the lion
Apparently so...and yet even the experts have difficulty telling lions and tigers skulls apart...whereas leopards and jaguars skulls are more easy to distinguish. Also lions and tigers can breed, often with fertile offspring. Leopards and tigers can also breed but lead to more still born or infertile offspring.
I should point out that the experts are still confused about relatedness between the cat species and their best estimates indicate a common ancestor for tigers and lions going back 3.5 - 4.0 million years ago. Very surprising that it takes 4 million years of evolution in a predatory mammal to simply change the fur coat, gain a few pounds and lengthen the teeth and claws a tiny bit.
Humans on the other hand have an evolutionary distance of 15 million years to our nearest relatives the great apes. A much bigger evolutionary step I think you would agree.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Huntard, posted 08-02-2010 9:07 AM Big_Al35 has not replied
 Message 59 by bluegenes, posted 08-02-2010 9:13 AM Big_Al35 has replied
 Message 64 by Coyote, posted 08-02-2010 10:19 AM Big_Al35 has replied

  
Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 63 of 91 (571769)
08-02-2010 10:09 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by bluegenes
08-02-2010 9:13 AM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
bluegenes writes:
Don't forget character. Lions are the only truly social cat, and the lionesses hunt in teams. Tigers are famously solitary once fully adult. You don't get a pride of tigers!
Actually there are more differences than you might imagine initially. Tigers can climb trees, lions can't. Tigers like water, lions don't. As for being social - tigers can also be social but from a distance. For example, they prefer to have surrounding territories occupied by family. eg daughters, brothers etc. This could be pride behaviour in a way.

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Replies to this message:
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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 67 of 91 (571774)
08-02-2010 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by bluegenes
08-02-2010 10:08 AM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
Huntard writes:
Ok, but they can never reproduce as a "species of hybrid" then, which is what I was picturing. They need a "parent species" partner to reproduce. Does this work with lions also?
bluegenes writes:
I think so. And yes to the hybrid point, because the males are, I think, invariably infertile.
Not sure I understand this hybrid point. If a tiger and lion reproduce and have a daughter we have fertile offspring. The daughter and grandchildren could then go on to mate with lions again and again. Are you saying that all great great great grandsons not matter how much lion they have in them can't mate with lions? This would be your hybrid species right? Almost lion but not quite.

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Replies to this message:
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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 68 of 91 (571775)
08-02-2010 10:38 AM
Reply to: Message 64 by Coyote
08-02-2010 10:19 AM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
I would like to see your source on this.
Wikipedia - great apes to homo sapiens. 15 million years.

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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 75 of 91 (571785)
08-02-2010 11:20 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Wounded King
08-02-2010 11:05 AM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
Wounded King writes:
That still isn't very informative. Are you basing this on twice the time since the human-chimp lineage divergence, which wikipedia gives as 5-7 million years ago?
Wow..a lion to tiger in 4 million years and chimpanzee to human in 7 million years. Something doesn't seem to add up.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 79 by bluescat48, posted 08-02-2010 6:27 PM Big_Al35 has replied

  
Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 80 of 91 (571975)
08-03-2010 6:15 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by bluescat48
08-02-2010 6:27 PM


Re: Genetic compatibility is not relevant.
bluescat48 writes:
The only thing that doesn't add up is your sentence.
We have already established that lions and tigers are almost indistinguishable in terms of bones etc in the modern age. A common ancestor would therefore also be almost indistinguishable from the modern cats. Identifying fossils for a common ancestor would therefore be a fruitless/worthless task. They both share the genus Felidae - Panthera (leo and tigris).
Humans on the other hand have the genus Hominidae - Homo - Sapien while chimpanzees have the genus Hominidae - Hominini - Pan. Therefore we do not share the genus Homo with any living creature. Therefore there is a world of difference between humans and chimpanzees. However, if you were to discover certain bones of a chimpanzee they might be indistinguishable from a small child or an adult human. Finding a common ancestor therefore would be a fruitless task. As evidenced by Nebraska man, Peking man, Piltdown man etc.

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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 83 of 91 (571982)
08-03-2010 7:13 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Wounded King
08-03-2010 6:56 AM


Re: Once more IDist/creationist says not to bother with research.
Wounded King writes:
Not really, you claimed this was the case but you didn't provide any evidence to support that claim. In contrast here is a blog post showing several differences between lion and tiger skulls.
Ok here is one link from potentially many that supports my claim that the differences are hard to distinguish.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 86 of 91 (572012)
08-03-2010 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 84 by Theodoric
08-03-2010 9:16 AM


Re: Lets compare
I didn’t really distinguish between someone who converted to
atheism vs one who never was religious to begin with.
HUH!
Sorry, I don't know what you are banging on about.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by Theodoric, posted 08-03-2010 9:16 AM Theodoric has replied

Replies to this message:
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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 87 of 91 (572014)
08-03-2010 9:57 AM
Reply to: Message 85 by Wounded King
08-03-2010 9:30 AM


Re: Lets compare
Wounded King writes:
As an aside a paper available on Scribd, here, gives a more sophisticated multivariable morphometric approach which they claim can distinguish tiger and lion skulls 100% of the time.
I think I might have seen this already. Still there is enough room for doubt. It would be interesting to see if they can tell a tigon or a liger skull apart from the parent species.

This message is a reply to:
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Big_Al35
Member (Idle past 799 days)
Posts: 389
Joined: 06-02-2010


Message 91 of 91 (572145)
08-04-2010 6:43 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by pandion
08-04-2010 2:33 AM


Re: Another example
The point I was making was that it is easy to see the differences between the different related species when we have the animals alive with us today. We can visibly see the difference between a brown bear and a polar bear. We can also do post mortems on these animals with a 100% certainty that the bones are either a brown bear or a polar bear.
In the case of fossils however, we don't have the physical form available. We don't have access to the DNA. We are unlikely to have the full skeleton even. There is enough variation within the brown bear stock to confuse leg bones, ribs and necks etc with those of a polar bear. This makes finding a common ancestor virtually impossible.

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