🐈
Cat
Felis catus
Carnivores
vs
🦁
Lion
Panthera leo
Carnivores · Vulnerable
29 clips name both of them
5.3 million views between them.
Lion outweighs Cat 38× — 149 kg against 3.9 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
To scale
Grid at 50 cm
50 cm
1 m
1.5 m
2 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic — Lukasiniho (CC BY-NC-SA); others CC0.
Cat
0.26 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Lion
1.15 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
3.9 kg
🐈 Cat · AnAge
149 kg
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Shoulder height
0.26 m
🐈 Cat
1.15 m
🦁 Lion
Body length
no figure yet
🐈 Cat
2.17 m
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Top speed
no figure yet
🐈 Cat
55 km/h
🦁 Lion
Bite force
no figure yet
🐈 Cat
1,768 N
🦁 Lion
Maximum lifespan
30 yr
🐈 Cat · AnAge
30 yr
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures. Bite force figures come from individual studies and vary a lot between sources.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Graphic clips stay hidden unless you pick Graphic.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Felidae (family), home to 91 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 6.8 million years ago.
Estimates range from 5.7 to 7.8 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).