Expert: Raphael Heng - 11/12/2007

Question
QUESTION: hi Raphael
some questions,
which cat has the loudest roar?
which is stronger tiger or lion?
which is the most aggressive great cat?
thanks


ANSWER: Hello there Suyash, thanks for your questions.
Regarding for your 2 questions, well, i have already answered them in the past, but since you ask, i will repeat my answers.

The big cat which has the loudest roar is arguably the Lion, Panthera Leo. Their roars can be heard from 5 miles away. The tiger is close behind, and their roars can be heard from 2 miles away. Given the difference in habitat that they live in it is hard to measure their exact loudness of Roar. As you might know, Sound waves travel faster in Open spaces like the plains and slower in closed spaces like the jungle, hence the lions are generally regarded to have louder roar.

Regarding your 2nd question, The tiger is stronger than a Lion, as any Felines or wildlife experts will tell you. Because of the weight advantage the tiger has over a lion, the tiger seems to be stronger.

Even pound for pound, the Tiger is stronger than a Lion, but this strength advantage at equal size is just so slight that some might say they are pound for pound equal in strength.
The forearms of the tiger is also stronger than a lion at average weights or even at equal weights, Tigers scored higher on HRR than the lion, so this shows that tigers are stronger than lions at the forearms. Overall, the tiger is also stronger, so i would conclude that the Tiger is the stronger cat.

Well your 3rd question has no definite answer. Up till now, there is no way to measure an animal's aggressiveness. Aggressiveness is neither a scaler nor a vector quantity and it cannot be calculated through physics or mathematical formula. Aggressiveness don't depend on the species, subspecies but on individuals, and may even depend on the mood of the animal, and so time to time an animal's aggressiveness is different. So there is no definite answer on who is the most aggressive cat in the Genus Panthera.

Hope my information helps, feel free to ask again.

----Raphael Heng

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hi Raphael,
what do you meant by ''HRR''?
and if there no way to measure aggressiveness,than why people say that lion is more aggressive than tiger?i just cant believe it. i know you must have answered it before but on average size,weight and aggressiveness,who will win african lion or siberian tiger?
thank you.


Answer
Thanks for the follow-up, Suyash. Sorry for the late reply because i am very busy recently.

Anyways, HRR stands for Humerus Radius Ratio.

And i have seen people on the net saying that lions are more aggressive, i have also seen people on the net saying Lions have stronger forearms and other untrue advantages. But you must understand that some of these advantages that both feline have are just made up by lion fans and tiger fans. So i want to advise you to be sceptical about everything you see or hear on the internet, as most of them aren't true.

And most big cat experts would say the aggressiveness of an animal depends on the individual, not the species nor subspecies.

A wild siberian's tiger current average weight isn't that much heavier than some subspecies of African lions, so the weight advantage of the Siberian tigers over Lions is sometimes greatly exaggerated by Tiger fans.

I anwered Lion vs Tiger numerous times before and i would say it is 50/50, it really depends on the individuals fighting.

Anyway, i have an account i told another questioner before, i don't know if you are interested but here it is.

There was once where i was sent to a Malaysian zoo(i will not specify the name) to be a trainee. And during the time i spent there, there was a transfer of a male African Lion from another Malaysian zoo to the Malaysian zoo i was being posted too. Well, that lion was very aggresive as he was seperated from his mates in the other zoo. He was put in a cage adjecent to a cage of a resident male crossbred Bengal/Indochinese tiger. This particular male tiger was neutralized a while ago because of his aggresion. In fact, many zoos in the world neutralize their animals to keep the aggression level down. Lions are usually not neutralized because the fur of their mane will drop after being neutralized. As you know, neutralizing an animal makes it the animal safer and less aggressive.

So the African Lion kept pacing around the bars that seperated the animal, in an attempt to challenge the tiger. The tiger, being a neutralized animal, did not pay much attention to his new neighbour.
The zoo uses switches to open up bars of the enclosure during feeding time and cleaning time. There was once a particular day where a zookeeper accidentaly turned on a wrong switch, during feeding time, and the bars seperating the two animals were opened. The lion ran into the tiger’s enclosure and they started snarling at each other before a fight finally broke out. All the zookeepers panicked and some of them rush to get the fire extinguisher. I was there all along to witness the entire fight. The male crossbred tiger weigh around 450lbs while the lion weighed 500lbs.
The lion was intially more dominant as he was the one who got the advantage of starting the fight, but soon after, the tiger got controlled of the fight and grabbed the lion’s mane and pinned the lion down on the floor with its huge paws. It was obvious that the lion is in great pain as it didn’t move.

The zookeepers got back with the fire extinguisher and seperated the animals back into their own enclosures after spraying them with carbon dioxide canister. Both animals were injured, but the lion got more injuries and had a large scar at the side of his face. Anyway, The fight took no more than 5 minutes.

Hope my information helps, please feel free to ask again.

----Raphael Heng