I remember being eight years old and watching Tarzan movies in which one would occasionally see a battle between a tiger and a lion, notwithstanding the fact that they occupy different continents and would not meet each other in the jungle. But what would I have known back then?
Anyway, I cannot recall which animal won. I think, though, that I would have been rooting for the tiger; I thought then that they were the neatest of all the big cats. I still do.
India has both tigers and lions, albeit separated now but not so a few decades ago.
There were Asiatic lions in Syria, Jordan areas before they got killed off .
wiki= The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), also known as the Indian lion, is a lion subspecies that exists as a single isolated population in India’s Gujarat State. It is listed as Endangered by IUCN based on the small population size.[1] The lion population has steadily increased in Gir Forest National Park, more than doubling from a low of 180 individuals in 1974 to a level of 411 individuals consisting of 97 adult males, 162 adult females, 75 sub-adults, and 77 cubs as of April 2010.[3]
The Asiatic lion was first described by the Austrian zoologist Johann N. Meyer under the trinomen Felis leo persicus.[4] It is one of the five big cats found in India, apart from Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard.[5] It formerly occurred in Persia, Mesopotamia, Baluchistan, from Sind in the west to Bengal in the east, and from Rampur and Rohilkund in the north to Nerbudda in the south. It differs from the African lion by less inflated auditory bullae, a larger tail tuft and a less developed mane.[6]