User blog comment:Pygmy Hippo 2/Animal Face-off:Tsavo Maneaters vs. Kesagake/@comment-27358240-20190628012752

Kazanshin's "Carnivora forum" edges:

Instead of the typical Deadliest Fiction vote, I'm evaluating the aspects of animal combat we most often look at in Carnivora.

First of all, the biggest aspect of these battles is grappling. Grappling is the most important factors when we're talking about battles between predator. Once the battle begins, it's eventually going to turn out into an all-out brawl, and that's where grappling comes in. For example, if a wolf fought a deer, the wolf would win because once it gets to the deer's neck, it can wrestle and grapple it down to the ground while the deer can't do anything of the sort or to fight back. Now, there are multiple factors that decide the winner of a grappling match, and one of the main ones is limb robusticity. In this (clickable) link, we can see and compare the limb proportions of Ursus Arctos and Panthera Leo. Lo and behold, the bear has the advantage in every single one of them. This already gives Kesagake a big advantage because once he starts brawling it out, he'll be capable of outmuscling his enemies. The next most important aspect of grappling is limb flexibility. It's common knowledge that bears, thanks to their less cursorial lifestyle, have far more limb flexibility than cats. This is gonna give Kesagake another edge in combat. Safe to say, the brown bear will completely dominate the opposition in a wrestling match. Edge: Kesagake

Next is bite force. However, that's something Pygmy gave us already, so I'm skipping it. Edge: Kesagake

Combat style is another important aspect, something Pygmy also gave us but I don't think got completely right. Yes, lions use choke bites, but bears don't skull bite. That's a specialty of wolves and jaguars, and sometimes cougars. Bears use a bite and thrash method of killing, in which they bite down on their enemy then shake them around to rip chunks of flesh off. This is a far more devastating form of attack than the lions' strangulation bite, which can take multiple minutes to kill. We have many accounts of hyenas, honey badgers, and even African Painted Hounds surviving strangling bites from lions. This is yet another edge to the bear. While a strangling bite may be good against herbivores, it's really not a good tactic against an enemy that can fight back like a bear. The thrashing bite causes more damage in far less amount of time, so I don't think this is hard. Edge: Kesagake

Final Verdict: If you couldn't guess, this is quite an easy win for Kesakage. Sure, the lions are a duo, but once the ber's mauling one lion, the other has no way of going for the throat when, you know, there's a pair of ripping, thrashing, and shredding jaws right above it. The only thing it could do is try to attack the hindquarter, but lions are ill-equipped for that because of their reliance n claws, which deal far less damage than jaws. Wolves, for example, can rip apart their enemies' hindquarters because of their abundance of type 1 muscle fibers and their specialized jaws made for ripping off large chunks of flesh and crushing bones. Lions, on the other hand, rely on type 2 muscle fibers which have far more strength but exhaust themselves far quicker. Their jaws are smaller than similarly sized canids and their bite force is weaker. Suffice to say, it won't be causing a lot of hindquarters damage before it's exhausted. This means once Kesagake is done mauling one of the brothers, he'll still be ready to go up to the other and finish the fight. The lions having no mane is yet another good thing for Kesagake as it makes his job of ripping apart the throat much easier. If I haven't said it enough, I'll say it again, Kesagake is the winner.

Deadliest Carnivoran: Kesagake