Eastern lowland gorilla vs Pantanal jaguar

[brobear]

I looked to see if this was already posted. I didn't see it and I hope that I didn't miss it. In any case, I would wager on the silverback gorilla. Noted; I wouldn't wager too heavily as I've never seen a gorilla fight a large predator. But, I tend to believe that he knows how. 

[Hardcastle]

Yeah I suspect with restrained confidence that male gorillas might be INSANELY underrated. I think chimps and baboons and mandrills are extremely underrated with evidence to prove how stupid underestimating them is. Then a male gorilla is like 5 chimps, basically. But in a battle-tank hulkian package, but people are like "oh yeah, for sure a leopard would beat a gorilla"... huh?
I'm not so sure a leopard beats a chimp, I sincerely see very strong evidence that mandrills and alpha male baboons give leopards EVERYTHING they could ask for in a fight, so ... what?! Max silverback Gorilla vs lion or tiger is for me the debate to talk about, and I still don't know.

[Deleted]

Jaguar wins.

Apes aren't even stronger than cats at similar sizes - will post account later.

[Deleted]

Jan 16, 2023 15:58:16 GMT @ling said:

Jaguar wins.

Apes aren't even stronger than cats at similar sizes - will post account later.

But what I will say is that a lion is almost twice as strong as a gorilla iirc.

[Methane]

Jaguars are kind of a middle ground in this matchup against a gorilla. I don't think the smaller big cats, like leopards or cougars, stand much of a chance against a pissed-off silverback most of the time in a face-to-face carnivora-style matchup, but I don't really have confidence for them against a big lion or tiger. I think the Pantanal jaguar is a point when the debate starts for the cat to win a one-on-one matchup, but the gorilla still has a great size advantage to possibly to pull off a win.

[Deleted]

Gorilla would lose to a lion, there was a cage fight were anleopard kills a gorilla.

[brobear]

Jan 16, 2023 16:31:41 GMT @ling said:

Gorilla would lose to a lion, there was a cage fight were anleopard kills a gorilla.

Yes, a lion or a tiger would be too much for a gorilla; as Methane agreed with. I agree with Methane that the jaguar is where the gorilla vs big cat face-off becomes hotly debatable. I would wager on the gorilla, but not with great confidence. 

The strength of a gorilla has never actually been measured; unless recently. There are, for the most part, two opposing views of a bull gorilla. One side sees a movie-monster who can bend steel bars and wrestle lions. The other side sees a big monkey who is such a meek peaceful animal that it is miraculous that he survives in the wild. 
 
I see a great ape who stands in the middle. He is probably stronger than any WWE wrestler. When the chips are down, he will probably defend his troop from any predator, or go down fighting. We cannot judge how good of a fighter he is by watching gorilla vs gorilla videos. Animals often fight a predator differently than they do their own kind; which is usually at least partly ritualistic. 

[Deleted]

The same way cat fans go on about captive cougar depression actually applies to gorillas due to intelligence and human emotions. It does not apply to cougars and leopards as they are wired much differently.
A leopard attacked a sleepy gorilla at night and got beat to death with a stick. Leopards lose all the time to gorillas and even coalitions of chimps, forfeit is a loss.

[Hardcastle]

When it comes to chimps and baboons, leopards ambush vulnerable individuals at night. An adult male chimp or baboon seeks out engagement with leopards in the day time, and the leopard flees. This is only flipped with the biggest most cock-sure male leopards maybe sometimes (I have seen that), but there have been studies on Mandrills for example where they played leopard sounds to see what they would do and they found to their surprise (expecting some kind of group freak out and fleeing up a tree) that while the women and children do freak out and flee up a tree, male mandrills calmly go looking for the leopard, hoping to find it and beat the shit out of it. I have watched olive baboons do the same in nature documentaries, even lone males seeking out leopards with their ears pinned back and no aggressive display to be scary or whatever. I know when an animal actually wants to fight.

This is what the sexual dimorphism in baboons and mandrills is for, and it actually is more complex than just sexual dimorphism, because there is an epigenetic shift in adult male baboons who become the "alpha" protector of a troop. They get flooded with a hormone, triggered by the stress of being the leader, which causes them to actually physically grow bigger with a more pronounced mane and bigger head and etc. You see this all the time with a baboon troop, like ok there's lots of males and females and they're all kind of whatever, so wtf is that guy? One brutish looking beast male who is unlike the others. That's the boss, and he physically changed to be the boss. And that is because his job is to protect from threats, including leopards.

Gorillas are the same, hence the "silverback". Silverback isn't a species or subspecies, it's a role. When an adult male gorilla becomes the boss, he morphs literally into a silverback. It's weird, but that's epigenetics. It's physical adaptation within one animal's lifetime caused by hormone signals. An "adult male gorilla" isn't an "adult male gorilla", he changes dramatically as an animal depending on his role in the social unit. And it all just goes to show what that role entails- Fucking shit up, basically. Or being prepared and able to, should he need to.

Yes leopards have killed gorillas, possibly they have even killed silverbacks here and there via stacking the odds in their favour via various means (I've read a case or two), but the fact silverbacks exist to fuck up leopards is to me far more significant. Leopards have to slink around on the outskirts of Gorilla camps, watching and plotting in the shadows, carefully, because a silverback is just way too much to take on upfront. It will fuck a leopard up, badly. Like I said, so will alpha baboons and mandrills. Some baboons more than others. Olive and Hamadryas, though not the biggest, have the most dramatic change in the alpha males where they are clearly built for combat. Mandrills are the same. The alpha male is just something else, more than monkey. A battle tank. And that's largely a package built with leopards in mind. If that leopard factor wasn't there, they'd all just be brown plain mediocre little monkeys sitting in a tree.

[Deleted]

The distinction between alpha primate and normal adult male is something to account for. That's an eye opener.

Like others here I consider the debate to be around male Pantanal jaguar vs average silverback. By "average silverback" I'm talking 320 lbs, the weight of the average among the smallest but most numerous gorilla, the Western lowland gorilla.

Although if you include all gorilla subspecies the average is a good 350 lbs I guess.

[Deleted]

If we're talking 350 lb silverbacks now I think lioness vs silverback is a match.

[Hardcastle]

Some Hamadryas baboon pics to illustrate the phenomenon I'm talking about-





That whole thing going on with the white guy is because he has the specialised role of "warrior" within his social unit. Some units may have multiple, but still they need to be understood as battle-beasts by design. Like soldier ants. 



Mandrills



And Gorillas



It's not JUST "sexual dimorphism" going on, there's the additional aspect of "specialised role within a social unit", and that role is (largely) protection for the troop against predators.