Thread:Glitchee123z/@comment-35455126-20190123014049/@comment-24018437-20190426200911

Anon: Yup, though it depends on the species of lion. There are four though one was later discovered to be closer related to jaguars and leopards and the other is a matter of taxonomic controversy.

First, the Tuscany lion. The Tuscany lion was later found out to be not closely related to the lion at all, and is instead now known as the European jaguar. Considering it wasn't a lion after all, aside from this brief mention, I won't go into detail.

When people think of the 'European lion', the cave lion often come's to mind. One of the largest cats to ever exist, the cave lion was once thought to be a Pleistocene subspecies of the modern lion that went extinct about 13000 years ago, but is nowadays regodnised as its own species. Its extinction, as is the case with most mammalian megafauna of the era, is generally blamed on the increase of human activity, change of climate and habitat or a mixture of both. I'm personally a supporter of the second theory, but that's besides the point.

There was a lion in Europe that lived in the Balkan peninsula, up to Hungary and Ukraine and Greece. While they didn't all go extinct in all regions at the same time, in the timespan from 1000 BC to 400 years AC the big cats became extinct throughout these regions. What this lion exactly was is a matter of sciencetific controversy. Some say it was a remnant of cave lions, others say it was a population of Asiatic lions (as they did inhabit parts of Europe prior to them being restricted to a single region in India) and some claim it was a European subspecies of lion that is now officially extinct.

The most recent lion in Europe to go extinct was the Asiatic lion, which lived in the Caucasian regions up to the 10th centry AC. As mentioned before, this subspecies is now restricted to a single area in India, known as Gir Forest. With this lion's local extinction, as well as that of the Caspian tiger, the Caucasian leopard is now the only big cat to inhabit Europe, though its extremely rare.

TL'DR: Yes, there was.

Glitchee: The answer to both questions is 'yes'. Most tigers do live in the jungle (with the exception of the populations in the Russian Far East and Northeast China) and tigers are the biggest modern cats still alive. When we look at the Asian jungles, then it can be called a king...Although it depends on what your defenition of what makes an animal a 'king'.

If your defenition of a king is an apex predator with little to fear, then yes. The tiger is most certainly the king of the Asian forests. It can and will hunt almost anything, ranging from deer and boars to wolves and buffalo. The tiger can bring down almost any herbivore, with the exception of elephants and rhinoceros'. When it come's to fellow predators...Tigers are the only natural predator of wolves, to the point that the presence of a tiger in an ecosystem filled with wolves can result in a local wolf extinction. They dominate leopards and striped hyenas, and have occasionally been known to hunt crocodiles and Asian black and sloth bears, though its admittingly not a common thing. The only predators that tigers really seem unwilling to mess with are dholes and brown bears, though tigers have been known to hunt both on rare occasion.

Furthermore, while never known as the 'King of the Jungle', it was often respected and associated with divinity and royalty. The Hindi warrior goddess Durga was said to have either a tiger or lion as a mount, and tigers were often exclusively hunted by high-ranking Indian noblemen and later the British as well. Tigers, during the British occupation of India, had a bad reputation though. As part of British propaganda, the 'Indian tiger' was portrayed to be the cruel, cowardly, sadistic and brutish brother of the noble, orderly and virtious 'British lion'. Official propaganda posters show a lion saving an Indian peasant from a lion, meant to symbolize the British saving the native Indians from chaos.

Its a different story in Russia. Not sure if they count, considering the tigers there don't live in jungle, but I'll share the story anyways. In several Russian cultures, the tiger is held sacred. Known as 'Amba', the tiger is seen as the embodiment of the wilderniss, the king of the forest, lord of the hunt etc. Offerings were left for tigers at special shrines, there were stories of how they taught humans how to survive and were often antroporphomised in many stories and cultures in the region, often giving them supernatural or antropomorphic features.