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Dartxo — Once Upon A Time In India

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Published: 2021-02-27 22:29:12 +0000 UTC; Views: 8780; Favourites: 369; Downloads: 0
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Description Once again uploading a piece finished roughly a year ago, done for last year's World Wildlife Day.

The meeting of our world's two supercats, the Tiger and the Lion, likely has not occurred in the wild for a couple of centuries, but it has stirred our collective imagination since antiquity, and continues to do so today. Though the historic range of Asiatic Lions did overlap with that of Caspian Tigers in parts Central Asia and the Middle East, and with Bengal Tigers in parts of India, I actually believe encounters and competition would have remained fairly limited by habitat preferences. The Tiger is essentially a forest predator, and the Lion prefers open, drier terrain. When they did meet, they would have done so in transitional zones, where grasslands and bushlands merged into dry forests.
A fight could go either way depending on each individual animal's size, fitness and temperament. But most historical and contemporary records, opinions of big cat experts, and my personal views, favor the larger, more powerful Tiger. In any case, I've always thought a bit silly to waste so much energy arguing over which animal would beat the other in a fight, as if they were dueling monsters in a movie or wrestling champions in an arena, and conservationists and experts tend to share in that view. There's a whole lot more that makes these animals amazing than just their fighting capabilities, and their coexisting in the wild is interesting beyond the question of who would win in a fight. 
Though still threatened on many fronts, Bengal Tigers and Asiatic Lions have grown in numbers and are beginning to outgrow their sanctuaries in India, with one Tiger recently wandering into the state of Gujarat, the only place in the world where Asiatic Lions reside. Only the future will tell if this scene will one day happen again, or if it will remain a picture of the past.
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A year on, this is still one of the best wildlife work I've done, and I'm pleased to finally upload it here. 
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Comments: 59

MarkKudym [2023-10-30 18:19:43 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to MarkKudym [2023-10-30 21:04:45 +0000 UTC]

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CobraFreek [2023-06-28 21:46:37 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to CobraFreek [2023-06-28 21:51:41 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

BrunoBaldin [2023-06-28 21:08:48 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to BrunoBaldin [2023-06-28 21:14:16 +0000 UTC]

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Whizzbang1698 [2023-06-28 15:34:12 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to Whizzbang1698 [2023-06-28 17:01:00 +0000 UTC]

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tybsssett [2023-06-28 14:02:24 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to tybsssett [2023-06-28 17:01:42 +0000 UTC]

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supersnappz16 [2023-06-28 11:30:02 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to supersnappz16 [2023-06-28 17:02:08 +0000 UTC]

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Vincentmarucut10292 [2023-06-28 07:36:25 +0000 UTC]

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DracoGodling [2023-06-28 05:18:22 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to DracoGodling [2023-06-28 17:11:25 +0000 UTC]

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DracoGodling In reply to Dartxo [2023-07-02 02:00:48 +0000 UTC]

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RalphandSamm55 [2023-06-27 19:01:06 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to RalphandSamm55 [2023-06-27 21:30:16 +0000 UTC]

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RalphandSamm55 In reply to Dartxo [2023-06-28 18:01:48 +0000 UTC]

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Aericlee [2023-06-26 23:16:17 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to Aericlee [2023-06-27 16:50:34 +0000 UTC]

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SirExiletheWanderer [2023-04-27 14:51:11 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to SirExiletheWanderer [2023-04-27 17:31:47 +0000 UTC]

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Mohamme [2023-03-25 10:28:33 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to Mohamme [2023-03-27 17:51:55 +0000 UTC]

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RogerTRex [2022-03-14 02:52:04 +0000 UTC]

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ThalassoAtrox [2022-02-27 19:11:13 +0000 UTC]

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acepredator In reply to ThalassoAtrox [2023-06-27 05:50:00 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to ThalassoAtrox [2022-02-27 20:10:57 +0000 UTC]

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TheAlternativeApe [2021-04-07 19:13:36 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to TheAlternativeApe [2021-04-07 22:23:00 +0000 UTC]

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TheAlternativeApe In reply to Dartxo [2021-04-07 23:02:17 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to TheAlternativeApe [2021-04-07 23:33:16 +0000 UTC]

Aye, but you cannot really compare lions in British heraldry and sculpture with lions in Western and Southern Asian art. I really do not think lions are as important culturally, religiously and historically to the British and Western Europeans generally as they are to Indians and other Asian cultures, a reason being as you pointed out, that there really have not been any lions there since prehistoric times.

I admit that prehistory is not a branch I am most knowledgable about. You are right, the lions being displaced by climate change and the spread of forests makes a lot of sense. My comment had more to do with the historic decline of lions, not with prehistory.

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TheAlternativeApe In reply to Dartxo [2021-04-08 00:17:38 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to TheAlternativeApe [2021-04-08 01:32:59 +0000 UTC]

You actually opened an interesting topic here. The Lion is not the "King of the Beasts" all across the world. If you look at many eastern cultures it is the Tiger that holds that title. Interesting example of Western imposition.
I'd be curious to learn more about it, but so far it seems to me that lions in European and Western symbology seems more like a case of apropiation than anything else, in that they took an animal foreign to them and adopted it as a symbol of the things they like.
It's actually one of the things that I think draw people to the Tiger vs Lion debate: in that they see it as a symbolic clash between East and West, but I mantain that the Lion has actually very little to do with the West as we now know it. You don't have entire rites, gods, temples and traditions with the Lion at the center as you do in fact in many ancient and current cultures in Africa and Asia.

👍: 1 ⏩: 2

ThalassoAtrox In reply to Dartxo [2022-02-27 19:33:21 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 0

TheAlternativeApe In reply to Dartxo [2021-04-08 02:55:54 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to TheAlternativeApe [2021-04-08 03:04:06 +0000 UTC]

I do agree that Elephants generally are more suited for the "King of the Animals" title. I think people tend to go for the predators because they asociate them with an aggressive, "take what you want" attitude (which isn't necessarily an accurate assesment), and forgo the hervibores because they asociate them with a placid, tame disposition (which isn't always accurate either, especially when applied to elephants).

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TheAlternativeApe In reply to Dartxo [2021-04-08 03:22:22 +0000 UTC]

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sirjosh9 [2021-03-30 15:18:41 +0000 UTC]

Singh the Asiatic Lion vs Shere Khan the Bengal Tiger.

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Dartxo In reply to sirjosh9 [2021-03-30 21:45:26 +0000 UTC]

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asari13 [2021-03-22 14:04:51 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to asari13 [2021-03-22 22:04:31 +0000 UTC]

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Splotchie [2021-03-01 00:06:19 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to Splotchie [2021-03-01 00:27:49 +0000 UTC]

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Splotchie In reply to Dartxo [2021-03-01 15:25:24 +0000 UTC]

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PouassonDeOro [2021-02-28 16:06:04 +0000 UTC]

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Dartxo In reply to PouassonDeOro [2021-03-01 00:29:14 +0000 UTC]

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Sibera-the-Wanderer [2021-02-28 07:27:48 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Dartxo In reply to Sibera-the-Wanderer [2021-03-01 00:39:32 +0000 UTC]

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