The Royal Bengal Tiger – Ranthambhore tiger Reserve
The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve tiger unlike the lion is a predator that relies on cover for success in hunting. Again unlike the lion it leads a solitary life. The only associations that occur are between male and female during the short courtship period and, of course, the long association between a mother and her cubs, till the latter grow and they can fend for themselves .young siblings, on parting company with their mother may sometimes stay together in an area for a few month, but soon tensions develop among them which breakup the company. Socialization is extremely rare and is generally limited to a young adult occasionally visiting its mother who is now caring for her next litter. Such a gathering may take place at a kill but is invariably short lived, a day or two at the most.
The parental care and upbringing of the young is the responsibility of the mother alone. This solitary way of life and the stalking or ambushing strategy of hunting is the only way food can be secured by a large predator in a forest environment or one with plenty of other forms of cover such as tall, dense reeds of terai grass land. Communal hunting by a large predator as in case of lions depends upon fair visibility and lack of obstruction, a situation not available in a closed forest environment. It is for this reason that that the tiger and lion are mutually exclusive in their distribution of tiger and lion in the Indian subcontinent, where alone both species occur, bear testimony to this.