Who wins?
Bears (most of the time)
Imho.
Bear beats all others!!!
This needs to be a three-cornered fight with tigers added to the mix.
Lions.
And tigers.
And bears.
Oh my!
Better yet, kick out that wimpy lion and let a real cat have a go. :eek:
It’s a draw!
"James I had the Lion Tower extended in the 17th century to provide a large viewing platform for guests, from which they could watch various animals from the menagerie being baited in the pit below. A famous match was staged between a bear and a lion. Neither beast, however, could be induced to attack, so the king had to retire disappointed. "
from: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba68/feat2.shtml
So much for empiricism. The stupid answer to the question, who would win a bear-lion fight?
The southpaw, every time.
Where their territories overlap tigers routinely eat bears I think that shows how little threat a bear poses to a big cat. Bear = lunch.
Granted these are sun bears and sloth bears, but even so they are still so defenceless that big cats eat them whenever they can find them. Even if we increase the size of the bear to brown bear size it still isn’t going to be any match for a big cat.
On its home turf I might give a polar bear a fighting chance against a lion. Aside from that it’s 10:1 in favour of the cat.
Har! Oh, I crack myself up. Anyhow, it occurred to me that any Latin scholars among us might have read the descriptions by Terence or Juvenal (and if I knew who else off the top of my head I’d be a Latin scholar, damn it) of the Roman circuses, which sometimes involved lions and bears and various other animals fighting each other. But Juvenal disapproved of the blood sports, and Terence seems to have been continually falling in love, so their legacy as sportswriters may leave us wanting. But if ten thousand saw it, perhaps one thousand wrote about it, and perhaps one man’s account yet survives. Maybe this is neither GD nor IMHO, maybe it’s GQ.
Maybe it’s MYOB. But I’ll bet there’s a real answer, though it may be, temporarily or forever, lost.
But sun bears are the smallest bears, smaller in size than a person. I think even a Siberian Tiger is going to have a tough time with a Polar or Kodiak.
I hesitate to post this link as I find it sick and sadistic (caged animals fighting) but here is a video of a lion fighting a bear. If you do not want to watch (I wouldn’t blame you) the fight seemed a draw (both are alive at the end). Hard to say which was doing better as both are dangerous and both got some shots in. I’d give the nod to the cat on this one but only just. Even if it went long enough for one to die the cat is going to be seriously injured after it all. If this were a polar bear or Kodiak grizzly (or even a ‘regular’ grizzly) I’d have to go with the bear. A bear may not be as fast as the cat (although they can be faster than you might think) but then a bear is one sturdy animal. In the end I think it could outlast the cat.
I just looked up some stats.
Male lions/tigers can weigh in at ~550 pounds at the high end (note there may have been bigger examples now and again…this is the encyclopedia answer).
Male Kodiak/Polar bears weigh in at ~1,760 pounds.
Maybe pound for pound a lion might be tougher but pit the biggest and baddest each group has to offer against the other and my money is the bear would crush the lion.
At what position are Lions on the ‘Threatdown’?
Exactly.
If we’re going with the largest, baddest example of each animal we can find, I think the 1600 pound bear ends up wiping the floor with the 500 pound lion. Now a 500 pound bear and a 500 pound lion would be another story alogether.
Followup question and partial hijack: if not a full grown Kodiak brown bear, what land animal would be the ultimate cage fighter? I don’t think an elephant would have the disposition, speed or tools, but how about a rhino or hippo? Hippos are supposed to be incredibly ill-tempered and vicious; so are rhinos, and both can clear two tons.
Did you hear recently about the hunter who killed a bear that was confirmed by DNA to be a hybrid grizzly / polar bear? That is where my money will be going.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060511/D8HHIDO80.html
Probably a poisonous snake. A krait could take out a rhino.
Wow, I didn’t even think of that approach.
But then again, there are martens and other small mammals that are quick enough to fight and kill poisonous snakes, yet would be pounded into glop by a bear. Maybe we have more of a rock-paper-scissors situation here.
I doubt many animals would be able to take on an Orca, even Great Whites are not known for being much of a threat to them, just as long as it all takes place in water.
How about, Orca vs. School of Piranha? 
Or are we limited to one-on-one matches here?
A poisonous sea snake might kill an orca (but I don’t think they swim in the same waters). Or maybe not – all that blubber might keep the venom from reaching the whale’s bloodstream.
Even if a sea snake managed to get its venom into the bloodstream of a whale I doubt it would kill it. The size of the animal counts for a lot when venom goes to work. By sheer size I doubt there’d be enough venom to do more than make the animal feel ill for a bit.
I know that dog versus bear always ends in tears.