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Fights of animals – Animal Battles

Hypothetical animal fights – Animal Battles

Duels of animals

One of our readers – Robert – was interested in hypothetical fights between various animal species. The majority of them are predators, except for our close cousin – the gorilla.

Thus, here is Robert’s letter:

“I was writing to you with the proposition of the section ‘Hypothetical fights’. I am curious what the fights of the following competitors would look like, round robin.”

Lion vs warthog
Lion vs. warthog

Fights

So we have the list of competitors, which includes various animal species, and each of them uses different fighting techniques and different attributes given by nature. We have been wondering though, why the American black bear and not the grizzly bear (it’s larger) or the polar bear, but if that is the list, we’ll refer to it as it is.

While there is no problem with choosing a theoretical winner – the Bengal tiger is our unquestionable favorite, the results of particular fights between the other animals may be problematic.

Lion vs. tiger

We have prepared a separate article on the fight between the king of the animals and the king of the jungle. If you’re interested, see: Lion vs. tiger – the fight.

Lion vs tiger - the fight
Lion vs tiger – the fight

Bengal tiger

The Bengal tiger is slightly smaller than the largest of tigers – the Siberian tiger. But contrary to its Amur cousin, the Bengal tiger is a bigger brawler – it’s aggressive, dominant and loves fights, or rather, being on the top. The Bengal tiger is born to fight; it is almost a perfect killer. It wins fights with lions, kills crocodiles, and therefore, it would emerge victorious from the majority of encounters.

Bengal tiger
Bengal tiger

American black bear

The American black bear is mostly herbivorous, although it feeds also on carrion and can hunt deer, but on a daily basis it prefers eating fish or insects to being bothered by hunting. The bear has large claws, of course, but they’re rather made for digging than fighting.

Obviously, it’s dangerous for us, but it will get out of a tiger’s way, unless it’s a bear mother with her cubs. Then, her determination to protect her cubs will be so strong, that the tiger will rather run away, in order not to get injured. We’ve seen a video where a bear gives in to a tiger, as well as some photos in which a female bear defends her cubs and a tiger remits.

American black bear
American black bear

Gorilla

Although you can associate the gorilla with combative King Kong, in fact, it is a typical herbivore. While nature gave the gorilla great strength, the tiger is not only heavier, but it’s also a trained killer with claws, enormous strength and teeth that the tiger sinks into its opponents’ necks.

Of course, we wouldn’t completely deprive the gorilla of its chances; although it’s an herbivore, it has large fangs which it uses to wound its opponents, and the punching power of the gorilla’s hands may certainly break a spine.

Gorilla
Gorilla

Anaconda

The anaconda is slightly overrated – it’s neither a Titanoboa, nor the creature from the movie with Jennifer Lopez. In South America it’s often a prey of crocodiles and jaguars. A tiger will easily deal with such a snake, provided that it’s not startled by it in the water environment. If it is, the anaconda has a great advantage and the tiger’s fate is sealed…

Anaconda
Anaconda

Komodo dragon

The Komodo dragon is obviously strong and can kill a cow, it also has venom glands, but large males are not heavier than 90 kg, while the Bengal tiger weighs over 200 kg.

And the winner is… the Bengal tiger.

Komodo dragons
Komodo dragons

Minor point

We have assumed that Robert would probably like to know the results of fights between animals forced to fight, with no opportunity to backtrack. Well, nobody knows such results, except for Roman emperors who forced animals and people to do things we don’t want to write about.

Forcing animals to fight and betting on the fights while watching them is inhumane in our opinion, and we certainly wouldn’t like to write about it. The encounters of these animals in their natural habitat are something different, although, as we know, only a bear could encounter a tiger, but it wouldn’t be the American black bear, because they live in North America, and tigers don’t live there 🙂 Therefore, the other animals won’t get in each other’s way.

We don’t want to indicate the winners of particular fights here. We’re more curious of your opinions – thus we invite you to a discussion below this article.

Bengal tiger - the winner
Bengal tiger – the winner

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20 Comments

  1. Thank you for your reply, I did not expect to come out of this article.
    I am opposed ago to force animals to fight, and I noted that these are only “hypothetical fights”. There are two different things, a lot of people interested in zoology surely someone can ask “who would win?”.
    Deliberately chose a grizzly bear / polar bears in my subjective opinion, are the higher caliber players and opponents for them should be different.
    I realize that in nature they will never fight each other and it is difficult to determine the winners.
    Now occurred to me that maybe a good way to use alternatives? eg. Baribal not met with anaconda but it is similar in size sloth bear may come across reticulated python. This python is in contact with the tiger, waran and orangutan (a smaller replacement gorilla).

  2. In Straight Dope there are ca 70 documented cases of lions defeating (male) tigers. I almost always saw tiger submitting to lions when together. In my opinion, the reason are lion’s mane and bigger snout.

    1. Doberman with out a shout
      – bigger teeth
      – bigger
      – faster
      also pit bull would be scared sort by being shorter

    1. This question has been around for years and, answering only in the hypothetical… I’ve had the good-fortune to spend time tracking wolves after their reintroduction into Yellowstone Park. A Pitbull would stand no chance against a G. wolf. None. Others here have mentioned the 406psi biting force of a wolf but that’s a ‘non charge’ bite force and it’s often compared to the attacking/charging force of dogs. The source that people often quote in this regard made an error in data collection in this regard because the charge impacts the force the algorithm sensors record. If a G. Wolf were measured in the same comparison (which it was not) the recorded # would have been even higher and/or the dogs bite would have been less.

      Often people who own pitbulls are consumed by this desire to have ‘the toughest dog’ and it clouds their judgment in this regard. As is evident by many who comment about the pitbulls prowess, stamina, persistence etc. I can assure you, after watching wolves take down prey 10-20x their size – a pitbull could, in no way, survive these attacks. If you’ve seen footage of the wolf and pitbull as they attack you can also get a ‘feel’, almost an intuition’ with regard to a certain sense of 110% focus a wolf has – their attacks simply feel different in a way that’s difficult to describe but as soon as you see it you realize it’s simply not the same thing.

      Lastly, there is such a level of sophistication to pack hunting – which a wolf almost always uses – that pitbulls could never, without centuries of breeding, fathom

  3. Puma versus reticulated python / green anaconda
    leopard versus reticulated python / green anaconda
    Jaguar versus reticulated python / green anaconda
    Assuming that all animals will be of average size and weight

    1. Puma versus reticulated python / green anaconda – Puma wins
      leopard versus reticulated python / green anaconda – Leopard wins (you can find a film on YT, where leopard wins with huge python)
      Jaguar versus reticulated python / green anaconda – Jaguar wins

  4. Male adlut cougar vs male adlut wolverine
    Male adlut cougar vs female adlut hyena
    (female hyenas are bigger than males)

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