🦌
Red deer
Cervus elaphus
Mammals · Least concern
vs
🦁
Lion
Panthera leo
Carnivores · Vulnerable
15 clips name both of them
2.9 million views between them.
Level on mass: Red deer 160 kg, Lion 149 kg.
To scale
Grid at 50 cm
50 cm
1 m
1.5 m
2 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic — Lukasiniho (CC BY-NC-SA); others CC0.
Red deer
1.13 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
160 kg
🦌 Red deer · COMBINE
149 kg
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Shoulder height
1.13 m
🦌 Red deer
1.15 m
🦁 Lion
Body length
2.14 m
🦌 Red deer · COMBINE
2.17 m
🦁 Lion · COMBINE
Top speed
no figure yet
🦌 Red deer
55 km/h
🦁 Lion
Bite force
no figure yet
🦌 Red deer
1,768 N
🦁 Lion
Maximum lifespan
31 yr
🦌 Red deer · COMBINE
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.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Laurasiatheria (superorder), home to 4,193 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 64 million years ago.
Estimates range from 58 to 76 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).