Alessandro Strobbe Recoba 

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Which is the king of the jungle?

Lions are often called "the king of the jungle", but maybe it's time to reconsider. These majestic apex predators are at the top of the food chain and play a fundamental role in controlling the overpopulation of other species, preventing an ecological disaster. However, if we compare them with other big cats, we will find that tigers are bigger, stronger and faster. In addition, researchers from the University of Oxford discovered that their brains are larger than those of lions and other big cats. They’re not necessarily smarter, but the odds are that they might be.

Lions live in societies called pride and they are the only felines to do so. This is a great advantage because while the male lion provides protection, the lionesses are in charge of hunting and feeding the pride. This allows them to capture larger prey and better care for the cubs. On the other hand, tigers are highly skilled solitary hunters. They’re characterised by stalking their prey and carrying out lethal and surprise attacks.

The tigers have sharper teeth and a more powerful bite than the lion, but that would not be decisive in a territorial dispute with them. It would likely have to deal with a lion helped by several lionesses. This is a great advantage for life in society because even if the tiger wins, it would have to recover from its injuries in solitude. And starvation could weaken it to death if this prevents it from hunting.

However, there’s a small detail that we haven’t mentioned. Lions live mainly in African grasslands and savannahs, not in the jungle. This word comes from Hindi (and thus also from Sanskrit) and refers to any uninhabited place. Considering that there aren’t tropical forests in India, the phrase would make sense in that context. Furthermore, tigers don’t live mainly in the jungle either, so if we want to be rigorous, the king of the jungle should be the jaguar, which lives in the tropical forests of Central and South America and eats alligators, anacondas and even turtles.

At the end of the day, the lion could not be the biggest and strongest, but it just enjoys its position in the pride, spending most of the day resting, giving orders and living by its own rules. And that sounds like royalty to me!