Who would win a lion or a bear?

Question

Who would win a lion or a bear?

Answer 1

a bear would break the lions back.

Answer 2

Lion. Though some species of bear, like the polar and brown bear, can weigh more than lions, most of their weight comes from their large, heavy skeletons and considerable amount of body-fat. By contrast, a lion's skeleton is quite small given the size of the animal, and its body-fat is minimal - most of its weight comes from its enormous musculature. Lions have evolved to hunt prey considerably larger than they are - they have to be immensely strong in order to bring down animals like buffalo. They also have much larger canines than bears, and the shortened muzzle and large sagittal crest on the skull gives them more powerful jaws. Not to mention their eighteen razor-sharp claws (bears' claws are non-retractile, and therefore blunt from constant contact with the ground). Brown bears, on the other hand, are largely vegetarian. They will occasionally take meat, but it is usually either carrion or young, inexperienced animals that are easy to catch. Polar bears are the most carnivorous of the bears, but again their prey - seals - are considerably smaller than they are, meaning they do not require as much strength to kill them.

Answer 3

Lion, because the lion is more agile than the bear, even though the bear is bigger, it moves slower.

Answer 4

The bear would win, as long as it is the right type of bear.  The size and aggressiveness of the species would be important.  Black bears tend to be territorial only against other black bears, and would be just as likely to run away from the lion.  To get an interspecies fight, you'd probably need to use a brown bear, like a grizzly, or a polar bear.

Lions kill by using their jaws to inflict something like a sleeper hold, pinching off blood flow to the brain.  It can take upwards of 5 minutes to disable a prey animal in this way.  Lions have relatively small hearts, and can not exert themselves for long periods of time.  They also hunt primarily in groups, and are fairly cautious when attacking larger animals.

Bears kill by knocking the sense out of whatever it hits with those big paws.  A polar bear's jaw can crush a seal's skull.  Bears also have thick hides that would be sufficient to protect against the relatively weak bite force of a lion.  Cougars don't usually have much luck when facing grizzly bears in the wild.