What’s the difference between a lion and a tiger?
Whether it’s having the “eye of the tiger” or having the heart of a lion, references to lions and tigers evoke power and determination. This is not surprising given that these animals are both large, powerful felines. But they are distinct species. So what do these iconic cats have in common and how are they different?
To answer this question, let’s look at what both species look like, their evolutionary history, and how they live their lives as kings of their ecosystems.
Appearance and anatomy
The most obvious difference between modern lions (panthera lion) And tigers (Panthera tigris) is their distinct physical appearance, particularly their coat.
“You just have to look at them to see that tigers have stripes and lions don’t,” Dell Guglielmoa zookeeper who cares for lions and tigers at the Smithsonian National Zoo, told Live Science. “Male lions have big manes, but female lions don’t.” On the other hand, male and female tigers look similar.
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A tiger’s stripes help the cat blend in among the patterns of light and shadow created by grasses and trees in the dense temperate and tropical forests of Asia where it lives. The orange and brown or black stripes stand out to the human eye, but to the tiger’s colorblind prey, orange appears green and blends into the crowd. The stripes are also pigmented on their skin. Each tiger’s striped pattern is unique, Guglielmo said.
The tawny coloring of lions also serves as camouflage. Lions blend into the dry grasses of Africa’s open savannahs.
Internally, however, lions and tigers are very similar. “If you look at skeletons, all cats basically look the same,” Z.Jack Tsengassociate professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, told Live Science. There is an unofficial saying among those who study cat fossils. If “you ask them to describe the fossil record of the cat family, people will generally say, ‘Well, a cat is a cat, it’s a cat,'” Tseng said. Even your pet cat is basically the same to a lion or a tiger, skeletally speaking – just proportionally much smaller.
There are key differences between male and female lions, including male lions having manes.
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Evolutionary differences
Despite their similarities, “lions and tigers are not each other’s closest relatives,” Tseng said. Tigers are more closely related to snow leopards, while lions are grouped with leopards and jaguars.
Additionally, tigers appeared as a species much earlier than lions. “The oldest putative tiger fossils are about 2 million years old,” Tseng said, “while lion fossils are probably no more than a million years old, probably younger than that.”
When it comes to classifying cats, size matters. Lions and tigers belong to the Panther like, with leopards, jaguars and snow leopards. The last common ancestor of the five species probably appeared at least 5.57 million years agoaccording to a genetic modeling study. Tseng and his co-authors modeled this age based on genetic sequences and anatomical data, such as characteristics of bones and teeth. No fossils have yet been found, but this ancestor was likely smaller than lions and tigers, Tseng said.
He noted that the two species evolved independently to become large. Animals can grow in size for a variety of reasons, including live in cooler climatesas this gives them a smaller surface area to volume ratio, which helps reduce heat loss. “The fossil record isn’t detailed enough to say whether lions and tigers grew independently for the same reasons, but they likely followed one or more of these broader trends as they evolved,” Tseng said.
Tigers behave differently from lions in their natural habitat.
(Image credit: Photo by Tambako the Jaguar via Getty Images)
Behavior
Lions and tigers behave very differently in the wild. Lions live in social, matriarchal groups with several female relatives and one or two adult male lions who may leave if challenged by another male. This is where the mane can come in handy.
“Cats often attack the neck when fighting and when killing prey,” Jacob Shankswildlife care manager at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, told Live Science. “As male lions are social, there is a lot of fighting over territory and access to breeding and other resources, so the mane helps protect against neck injuries.”
A liger is a cross between a lion and a tiger.
(Image credit: Matevz Gros via Getty Images)
Tigers have far less social interaction than lions. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for two years before separating. As adults, tigers generally avoid each other, outside of breeding. When a tiger wants to approach another individual, it emits a sound similar to a puff, called chuff, by pushing air through its nose. Tigers are “one of the only species of cats that blow,” Guglielmo said. If the second tiger agrees with the first tiger approaching, it will move back. “Lions don’t use chuff; they just use different body language or just approach and see if it works,” Guglielmo said.
Would tigers and lions ever meet in the wild? This is not likely, as they live in completely different parts of the world. Even in the fossil record, there is no overlap in their range, preventing the two species from competing and reproducing, Tseng said.
However, humans have artificially bred lions and tigers in captivity, creating a hybrid called liger. “Hybridization doesn’t exist in the wild,” Shanks said. “I have never seen a case of wild lion-tiger hybridization.” Making hybrids does not benefit either species, he added.
A key similarity between lions and tigers is the threats they face. Tigers are considered endangeredand the lions are vulnerableaccording to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Both big cats face threats from human conflict, habitat loss and climate change. “They need active conservation to protect them and help improve them if we want them not to disappear,” Shanks said.
Think you know lions and tigers? Test your intelligence with our quiz on big cats!
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