Have any of you guys seen this new series? It seems really interesting.
So far I have seen the following;

1.) Great White vs Saltwater crocodile. = GW winner.
2.) Elephant vs Rhino = Elephant winner.
3.) Lion vs Tiger = Lion winner.
4.) Wolf vs Cougar = Couger winner.
5.) Bull shark vs Hippo = Hippo winner.
6.) Polar bear vs Walrus = Walrus winner.
7.) Tiger vs Brown bear = Brown bear winner.

For those of you who have seen these shows, how'd you like them?
Did you agree with all the outcomes? Why or why not?

Sounds like a survey, but I guess it's the kid in me who always wondered about these sorts of things, "the what would win, scenario"..lol.

 

I observed the Wolf v. Cougar show. I was not really that impressed. I could not believe that they spent that much time and energy trying to state the obvious. Plus, there are some things that cannot be reconstructed in a laboratory. As a result I have some serious problems with some of their findings. For example, the Walrus and the Polar bear. Give me a break. A polar bear is much more mobile than a Walrus. Other than that I agree with their findings.

 

I thought the GW vs Croc was a sham. The croc had beat the crap outta the shark, but then got screwed, and they let the shark win. Absolute BS I wanted a recount, but I live in Ohio, not Florida

 

I think the croc should have won, secondly it only deals with it happening in one nstance, i.e. shark vs croc---deep water, well what about shallow water? or god forbid, land? haha that would be funny, even in deep water I still think the croc would win. I mean you had shoot at them with a large bore gun and it bounces off....

Polar vs Walrus....mmmm I actually do think a walrus would win. and that is on land, what about in the water? bear dont stand ANY chance....

wolf vs cougor, obvious!

 

Its really fascinating to watch them work but the end with who wins is pretty subjective and sketchy...IMHO the tiger kicks the lions *** and that polar bear whoops the walrus.

 

Do you mean the Discovery channel gets animals, basically puts them in a ring, and lets them fight it out? Lions and tigers usually do not live in the same habitat, do they?

 

they do a lot of robotic simulation (construct croc and shark jaws out of aluminum and measure bit force, same thing with lion and tiger claws, you get the picture) and computer reconstruction and animation of the animals and then they program a computer simulation where the animals fight it out and pick a winner based on a subjectice review of the strengths and weaknessess of the specific animals. They have zoologists specializing in each particular animal that debate back and forth and bring their expertise to the simulations. Its a really good way to kill an hour.

 

I like to watch them in the foundry making the heads for the robots - thats pretty cool. Other than that I don't agree with the show. It is inaccurate at best. I would suggest they bring in some more scientific technical help, but I since they are making comparisons between animals that would never encounter each other and have to ignore all of thier instincts to become involved in the proposed matchups, most scientists would just say it could not happen and walk anyway.

 

Posted by recobardo;

Do you mean the Discovery channel gets animals, basically puts them in a ring, and lets them fight it out? Lions and tigers usually do not live in the same habitat, do they?
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fatman66 answered your first question well enough. As to your second question -no. They used to. There are currently only two living sub species of Lion. The African of course, and the lesser known Asian lion. The asian
lion once roamed a wide range. It's natural habitat once spaned China, India,
the middle east and possibly Saudi Arabia. The lions mentioned in the bible, such as the one Samson is said to have killed, are from this species. This species is distinct from the african species in many physical respects - it is not merely an african lion living in asia. There are currently no more than 400 living in the wild. Inbreeding is a problem. All of these animals are currently restricted to a preserve set in the Gir forest in India. The nearest known natural tiger habitat is at least 140 km away. The Barbary and Cape lions
were both made extinct within the last one hundred fifty years. The barbary was the lion known to the Romans. It was the species which was imported to the Colosseum for gladiatorial fights and Christian lunches. This lion was approximately 25% larger than the African lion. The last was killed in 1922 by a trophy hunter.

I think the results were pretty accurate - many of the fights could have gone either way between evenly matched animals - croc vs GW. Some were mis matches - cougar vs wolf. All were between animals which do meet in the
wild - even hippo vs bull shark. Bull sharks are equally at home in both salt and fresh water. The inland record for one is 1750 miles up the mississippi river. Hippo's have been found with bull shark's teeth imbedded in their hides, and nile crocodiles have been found to have bull shark remains in their stomachs. It's fair to say that bull sharks do frequent fresh water African rivers.

Saltwater crocodiles are very territorial animals. They have been spotted in the ocean more than 600 miles from the nearest land. It's probable that both the saltwater crocodile and great white shark have predated on each other before. The respective animals sizes would have much to do with outcome.
The interesting thing is that crocs are not true marine animals. Sharks are.
Yet the croc can swim faster than the GW for short bursts. Just the fact that a land/water dweller can challenge - and even beat an animal with a dedicated marine design in it's own oceanic environment is awesome.

I did'int have a problem with the croc / shark outcome - it's entirely possible.
But I did have a problem with the shark being able to bounce back to win after suffering such a traumatic attack. The tail cartilage MUST have been broken from the croc's bite. It's ampulae (sensors in the snout) which enable the shark to detect and track prey were also crushed in another bite. One of it's pectoral fins was severed completely -how could it swim in a straight line to attack after that? In reality such a traumatized, wounded shark would have been slowly swimming around in circles without any sense of direction or consiousness. It's only consolation would be the croc coming back down to put it out of it's misery after taking it's needed breath of air.

Lions, tigers, and bears. There are always exceptions, but as a general rule it goes something like this; Lions usually win against tigers, tigers do hunt and kill brown bears, the largest bears can kill both lions and tigers, a lion will almost never win against a large bear, but a tiger can. Some explanation;

The brown bear inhabits North America and Asia. The Grizzly and Kodiak brown bears are both sub species. All species of brown bear can weigh as much as 1500lbs. Siberian tigers (600 + lbs) have been known to stalk and hunt these bears. They know how. Most tigers would rather hunt something less dangerous, but when game is scarce hunger rules. The tiger will perch itself onto high ground and wait for the bear to pass by. As it does, the tiger leaps onto it's back and digs in. It will try to manuver it's jaws to the bears throat to suffocate it. If this does not work it will bite into the skull from behind - destroying the brain. Many tigers will think twice before attacking a mature fully grown male brown bear. No tiger will attack one from the front.
They have learned that one swipe from the bear's front paw usually means death.

In all of history's recorded lion/tiger fights, the lion has emerged the victor about 70% of the time. Lions are social cats. The females do the most hunting, while the males primary reasons for existing are mating, and keeping the social structure intact. This involves alot of fighting between males - those who have prides, and those who wish to take them over. Because of this constant fighting, male lions have the shortest natural lifespan of all the big cats - about 9-11 years. Their thick manes protect them in these fights.
Experienced lions will attack their adversarie's exposed body parts behind the mane, or will try to gouge his eyes out. A tigers natural instinct is to avoid
confrontation - except when mating. Even a slight injury can be life threatening for a tiger which cannot hunt for itself. Since the females do most of the hunting in a pride, a lion is not concerned with this, and is much more willing in it's nature to commit itself to territorial combat. Besides this,
most tigers are unfamiliar with lions - they attack them as if confronting another tiger. They have not learned as lions have, that the best way is to
go for the exposed areas and face gouging. It is the lions natural tenacity and his mane which usually gives him the advantage over the stronger tiger.

This same tenacity usually gets the lion killed against a large bear. Lions do not frequent the same habitats as any bears do. Bears are immensely strong animals. 800lb grizzlies have brought down even bull moose by literally twisting the head and breaking the neck. They have very dense bone - 10 times as dense as ours. And very dense muscles as well - more similar to a horses leg muscles than a cat's. In California during the late 1800's it was common practice to pit locally trapped grizzlies against prized fighting bulls. The bulls usually ended up dead of broken necks when the bear grabbed it's horns and threw it's weight and muscle into it. To keep the bets even, some
enterprising peole got the idea of importing african lions for these fights.
The lions dominated the bulls as well, but scarcely put a dent in the grizzlies winning records. Starved lions were all to eager to fight the grizzlies, and charged in straight away - only to be met by a single paw strike which crushed the skull. The lions were usually dead before hitting the ground.
The tiger would have fared much better here - possibly 50%, since they are well aware of the bears strength, and will try to out manuver the bear rather than charging it head on.

Hope it was a good read fellas - keep it coming guys. I really love hearing views on this topic - don't feel to stupid to have an input - everyone's views are worthy - even if just because. Not everyone is going to agree with me regardless .

Thanks again.

 

Wow, nice info sinister! Alot of good reading and info there.

I prefer the beauty of large cats, but completely respect larger bears for those reasons.

 

I've seen four of the shows. They're interesting but not all that much. I wish they would spend more time with the actual contest, maybe "best 2 out of 3" and less with the experimenting. Also, the smack talk between the experts is silly.

 

Wow, I wish I would've seen that series of shows. Sounds like it would have been really interesting. I love learning about big wild animals and their hunting and survival. Sinister, how did you acquire so much knowledge on the subject? It's really quite impressive.

The hippo vs. bull shark outcome was not at all surprising to me. What I would like to know is the potential outcome of a hippo vs. grizzly on dry land. I have heard from many hunters who've been around the bend a few times that the most dangerous animal is a hippo on dry land. Any thoughts?

Ryan

 

Incidentally, there's a breeding effort underway to bring back the Barbary lion. Here's a link that gives a quick summary: http://www.bigcatrescue.org/barbary_lion_news.htm

And up until a few thousand years ago there were lions on the European mainland, too. As indicated by cave paintings, the males were apparently maneless. North America had true lions as recently as maybe 10K years ago or so.

For those interested, a pretty good read on so-called "Alpha" predators and their relationship with good ol' Homo sapiens is David Quammen's Monster of God. It's not my favorite book of his, but it's definitely got some interesting stuff.

 

Thanks for the info Sinister73!