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Friday 11 April 2014

Forbidden Facts

In an another of those 'big snake eats big croc' stories, this time the snake didn't burst open, as the last media example of this event illustrated.

Snake v Crocodile
Snake v Crocodile

The pictures speak for themselves this time and have gone viral, as everyone reads these sorts of Lion v Tiger stories .....
 
.... in fact the Internet is full of video sites purporting to show what happens when a Gorilla takes on a Buffalo, or some such equally unlikely scenario. Most show nothing of the kind, and just weigh up the 'opposition' and say 'its not going to happen, but cor blimey, what if it did!'

In fact I can recall that long ago, before YouTube and the Internet, there were such 'facts' available in the Guinness Book of Records .... the one I recall looking up when I was a kid was the traditional 'Lion v Tiger' battle royal. Then one year those 'record/facts' were all removed from the books editions, and I lost a lot of interest in the Guinness Book of Records ... such is the fickleness of youth.

Just for the record, and wholly from memory (as it was in the early 1960's that I read the 'record fact'), it appears that in fact, against all the odds, the only, well at that time, example recorded in the Guinness Book of Records of a male lion and tiger fighting, came from a Hollywood film producer in the 1930's. The lion apparently took one look at the tiger, and then leapt on the Tiger breaking its neck, or so the report read. 
 
Seemingly the film producer had hoped to film this 'epic battle,' and use the stock footage in a jungle film .... in fact there was at least one such lion tiger fight, staged for a jungle film in the Gir Forest in India, where lions still live in India. The Lion wins. I suspect that male lions are far more innately aggressive towards threats due to living with pride harems, that they have to defend against other prides or young males wanting to take over the pride.

There are other examples of these fights going to the Lions, so maybe its not just size that matters .... the male lions manes also may help. 

Lion Kills Tiger - Perth Zoo
Lion Kills Tiger - Perth Zoo

Lion Kills Tiger - Circus Show
Lion Kills Tiger - Circus Show

And even as recently as 2008, in a zoo incident in South Korea ... a land that idolises the tiger as the embodiment of the fighting spirit ..... A lion at Jeonju Zoo, in North Jeolla Province, attacked and killed a tiger in the zoo. The body of the dead tiger was taken to a veterinary hospital in the zoo.

Lion Kills Tiger - Zoo Incident In South Korea
Lion Kills Tiger - Zoo Incident In South Korea

Anecdotally I understand that Tigers should win 9 out of 10 times when evenly matched, but the Korean zoo keeper said that the outcome of fight between a lion and a tiger depends on which gets a head start, and which is more aggressive, adding that neither animal is always superior to the other. How he can be so sure was not explained.

But there are many who argue that tigers win these fights .... again I have no reason to suppose that's anymore trustworthy than my lion win in the 1930's. However the debate rages across the Internet as these links (out of many) illustrate .....I have no idea what made me think of all this, or why it obviously excites such interest on the web, even now when tigers in the wild are all but extinct.  

Oh well, thank god for CGI these days, that's all I say ....  lions and tigers are both endangered species.

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