London: As the king of the jungle, the lion may have the brawn, but it is the tiger that has the brains, scientists claim.
A wide-ranging study of big cat skulls has shown that tigers have bigger brains, relative to their body size, than lions, leopards or jaguars, even though it is often seen as lower down the food chain.
The team based at Oxford University investigated the
relationship between the skull size – the longest length
between the front and back parts of the skull – of a large
sample of tigers, lions, leopards and jaguars and the volume
inside the cats` respective craniums.
The study`s findings have been reported in this
month`s Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
"What we had not expected is that the tiger has
clearly much bigger relative brain size than do the other
three species, which all have similar relative brain sizes,"
said Nobby Yamaguchi of Oxford University`s Wildlife
Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and author of
the report with WildCRU Director Professor David Macdonald.
"When we compare the two biggest species, on average
the lion has a bigger skull than the tiger based on the
greatest length of the skull.
However, the tiger has bigger cranial volume than the
lion. It is truly amazing that tiny female Balinese tiger
skulls have cranial volumes as large as those of huge male
southern African lion skulls," he said.
It has sometimes been assumed that social species,
such as lions, should have larger brains than solitary
species, such as tigers, because of the need to handle a more
complex social life within groups or prides.
However, despite a few studies suggesting a
relationship between big brains and sociality in mammals,
evidence for the link is far from clear.
Dr Yamaguchi said: "Our results strongly suggest that
there is no detectable positive relationship between relative
brain size and sociality amongst these four big cat species,
which shared a common ancestor around 3.7 million years ago."
The team also looked at the popular idea that tigers
are `bigger` than lions, which could mean that the tiger`s
relatively bigger brain size simply reflects its bigger body.
However, careful re-evaluation of original field data and
relatively well-documented hunting records does not support
this idea.
So the team concluded that the tigers have a
relatively bigger brain (around 16 per cent larger) than
lions, given their very similar average body sizes.
Professor Macdonald said: "Two general lessons emerge
from our findings: first, how much remains to be discovered
about even these most familiar of big cats, and second how
important museum collections can be as a source of unexpected
insights."
Bureau Report
