• General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world
      11·
      10 hours ago

      We used to think that they nap most of the day because we couldn’t see what lions did at night. With new camera technology, we can now. Male lions are, maybe, a little more badass than we thought. Their job is basically to fight other lions and hyenas and shit and patrol their territory. They do this at night. Lionesses are still super badass and maybe even more badass than we originally thought, too. I guess what I’m saying is that lions are just badass. The difference is that lions are social creatures while, as far as we can tell, tigers are more solitary, so there’s a comparison issue there. Male lions do, at least, do a bit more for the pride aside from sleeping and fucking, like some of the old documentaries I remember made it look like. That’s just how they are during the day, but I mean, they’re cats. They do a lot of shit a night we didn’t really have a good handle on until recently. Male lions are big and muscly and powerful not for no reason. They have to have that in case something else wants to fuck around with their pride and find out. The lionesses are the providers, the male lions are the protectors that stay at home and protect the territory. We like to try to fit things into our own ways of understanding, but they just do it different. It’s how they evolved to survive.

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzEnglish
        21·
        3 hours ago

        Lion is king because he’s social. You can’t be a king without subjects. Tigers are the ronin of the jungle. Lions are the king of the savanna.

  • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    5·
    12 hours ago

    That whole “king of the jungle” bullshit was started by white people that couldn’t even point to where a jungle was on a map.

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
    482·
    24 hours ago

    Lions fights other cats in their pride. How often do Tigers even run into another tiger? So experience goes to the lion.

    Tigers kill by grabbing the throat with their teeth and letting the prey suffocate. Lion has a big wirey mane around his neck - something evolution gave him for… Fighting other big cats.

    Yes the tiger is bigger, but the lion has the tools and experience to overcome that small size difference.

    • stray@pawb.socialEnglish
      10·
      12 hours ago

      How often do Tigers even run into another tiger?

      All the time. While tigers lead solitary lifestyles, they’re not devoid of socialization. Territories overlap and lead to peaceful interactions and conflicts over borders. Sometimes they even cooperate in hunting or live together, though that’s less frequent. The nature of their interactions is mostly dictated by sexual relations and the ratio of tigers to prey.

      This is not meant to contribute to the tiger vs lion issue.

      I also think it’s interesting to note that while the mane serves a practical purpose, it’s also wildly oversized as a result of sexual selection.

  • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
    114·
    1 day ago

    does NOT even live in the jungle

    Fwiw, that’s definitely not a requirement. The King of Australia doesn’t live in Australia, either.

    • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      What about that Plantagenet dude?

      According to Baldrick he lives in Australia and is no less legitimate a claim to be king of england than any of those bastards since Dick III. The fact that he hasn’t raised an army and started any wars suggests he might be less of a dick than most of them.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain%27s_Real_Monarch

      Oh - looks like he died, but maybe his offsping.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
      81·
      1 day ago

      Okay, this made me look up if Australia is still a commonwealth. It is, but who the fuck knew India still was? I’m not the only one who didn’t know, right?

      • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
        6·
        16 hours ago

        fwiw the word “commonwealth” is…essentially meaningless. If you hear someone say commonwealth on its own, they’re probably talking about the Commonwealth of Nations as @scholar@lemmy.world described. The Commonwealth of Nations is basically a loose grouping of countries that do various things together. Probably the most noteworthy thing they do together is the Commonwealth Games, a sort of mini-Olympics.

        But several other things also use the word. There’s the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet states. There’s Australia, a country whose full name (in the way the full name of America is the United States of America) is the Commonwealth of Australia (and in Australia, “the Commonwealth” is sometimes used synonymously with “the federal Government”). There are several states in America which are properly termed commonwealths, such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

      • scholar@lemmy.world
        111·
        20 hours ago

        India is not a commonwealth, but is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Charles III is the head of the Commonwealth but not the monarch, he is separately the monarch of some (but not all) Commonwealth countries. Most Commonwealth countries are republics.

        Australia is both a commonwealth (in name) and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, but those are two separate kinds of commonwealth.

        To summarise: All commonwealths are commonwealths but not all commwealths are the Commonwealth of Nations and not all members of the Commonwealth of Nations are commonwealths (although some are).

        • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
          6·
          16 hours ago

          he is separately the monarch of some (but not all) Commonwealth countries. Most Commonwealth countries are republics

          Also fun fact, some members of the Commonwealth are monarchies, but with a different monarch than House Windsor. Like Malaysia.

        • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
          11·
          24 hours ago

          To summarise: All commonwealths are commonwealths but not all commwealths are the Commonwealth of Nations and not all members of the Commonwealth of Nations are commonwealths (although some are).>

          Lmao, well that explains it! So this is how you remain a monarch in a democracy, hide yourself.

      • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
        27·
        1 day ago

        Jungle

        1776, “dense growth of trees and other tangled vegetation,” such as that of some regions in India, from Hindi jangal “desert, forest, wasteland, uncultivated ground,” from Sanskrit jangala-s “arid, sparsely grown with trees,” a word of unknown origin.

        Source: Etymonline

        I can’t tell if you meant to say “uninhibitated” or “uninhabited.” I get the impression you meant the latter, which would be in line with the idea of “desert” or “wasteland.”

        Either way, the history of the word jungle reveals that its root might have applied to what we’d call today a savanna, which is where lions live. So, the title “King of the Jungle” could have made sense for lions at some point.

        • embed_me@programming.devEnglish
          3·
          11 hours ago

          Actually the Indian Gir Lion does live in jungle/forest. As for the history of the word, the present meaning (forest) might’ve been used for longer by now (in India) than the old meaning.

          And funnily enough, the Hindi word “sher” can mean either lion or tiger, although they do have a specific word for tiger, “bagh”. And we do have the same title/phrase in Hindi which could mean either lion or tiger is the king of the jungle. I personally never thought it was the tiger because when I was a child, the Lion King had already been released.

          • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
            2·
            5 hours ago

            That’s so interesting! I guess the meme is moot if the question is asked in Hindi, haha.

            I get the connection with the Lion King also. Speaking of animation from childhood, I’m now remembering an episode of Rugrats where the phrase “King of the Jungle” became an argument. Except on that show, the argument was over whether the title belonged to Tarzan or to King Kong.

    • Zwiebel@feddit.orgEnglish
      12·
      1 day ago

      That’s why ‘von und zu’ exists in German. ‘von’ means ‘of House…’, and ‘zu’ basically means ‘resides in …’. So King von und zu Luxemburg would be King of house Luxemburg who also lives in Luxemburg

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
        4·
        1 day ago

        Interesting. So can someone be “von” multiple places? Charles von Australia und United Kingdom und Canada und New Zealand zu United Kingdom?

      • optional@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 day ago

        Incidentally, in German the lion also isn’t called king of the jungle, but king of the animals. But I don’t know if that means von animals or zu animals 🤔.

  • Nadru@lemmy.world
    42·
    1 day ago

    Something that was getting shared a lot once (not too sure how true) that the whole “lion is the king of the jungle” thing was pushed by the Church in Europe to counter the pagan cult of the bear. The bear was basically worshiped as an embodiment of strength, saying that he’s not the strongest tarnished his image.