Tiger versus lion
In the circuses of Ancient Rome, exotic beasts were commonly pitted against each other. The contest of the Asiatic Lions, the smaller version of the African Lion, against the tiger was a classic pairing and the betting usually favoured the tiger. A mosaic in the House of the Faun in Pompeii shows a fight between a lion and a tiger. At the end of the 19th century, the Gaekwad of Baroda arranged a fight between a lion and tiger before an audience of thousands. The Gaekwad favoured the lion, and as a result had to pay 37,000 rupees as the lion was mauled by the tiger.
Historically, the comparative merits of the tiger versus the lion have been a popular topic of discussion by hunters, naturalists, artists and poets, and it continues to inspire the popular imagination in the present day. Lions and tigers have competed in the wild where their ranges have overlapped. They have also been pitted against each other in captivity, either as deliberate contests or as a result of accidental encounters.
The Amur or Siberian tiger is the largest subspecies of the Panthera genus, known to weigh up to 360 kilograms (800 lb), while large African lions weigh up to 250 kilograms (550 lb).
The average weight of males is 175 kilograms (386 lb) for the Asiatic lion, 200 kilograms (440 lb) for the African lion, 221.2 kilograms (488 lb) for the Bengal tiger and 230 kilograms (510 lb) for the Siberian tiger.
