Tigers usually prefer to eat prey t

Tigers usually prefer to eat prey they have caught themselves, but are not above eating carrion in times of scarcity and may even pirate prey from other large carnivores. Although predators typically avoid one another, if a prey item is under dispute or a serious competitor is encountered, displays of aggression are common. If these are not sufficient, the conflicts may turn violent; tigers may kill competitors as leopards, dholes, striped hyenas, wolves, bears, pythons and crocodiles on occasion. Tigers may also prey on these competitors.[37][103][105][106][107][108] Attacks on smaller predators, such as badgers, lynxes, and foxes, are almost certainly predatory.[78] Crocodiles, bears and large packs of dholes may win conflicts against tigers and in some cases even kill them.[37][52][109][110]

The considerably smaller leopard avoids competition from tigers by hunting at different times of the day and hunting different prey.[111] In India's Nagarhole National Park, most prey selected by leopards were from 30 to 175 kg (66 to 386 lb) against a preference for prey weighing over 176 kg (388 lb) in the tigers. The average prey weight in the two respective big cats in India was 37.6 kg (83 lb) against 91.5 kg (202 lb).[112] With relatively abundant prey, tigers and leopards were seen to successfully coexist without competitive exclusion or interspecies dominance hierarchies that may be more common to the African savanna (where the leopard may coexist with the lion).[112] Lone golden jackals expelled from their pack have been known to form commensal relationships with tigers. These solitary jackals, known as kol-bahl, will attach themselves to a particular tiger, trailing it at a safe distance to feed on the big cat's kills.[113]