​Eight Percent Of Americans Think They Could Beat A Lion In An Unarmed Fight

Eight percent of Americans think they could beat a lion in a fight - unarmed - according to a new survey.

The study, which comes from YouGov America, pitted 34 animals (including humans) against each other to see which people think is the mightiest.

A total of 1,224 US adults were included in the research, which took place last month between 12 and 13 April.

PA

Respondents were asked to choose which of two animals they thought would win in a fight, having been shown a 'series of head to head match-ups'.

YouGov explains: "We showed people seven random pairings of animals from the list and asked them which of the two they thought would win in a fight.

"Animals are ranked by their 'win percentage', that is, how often Americans thought that animal would win in a head-to-head matchup when it was one of the two animals shown."

Lions came out fairly well in the study, with a 68 percent win percentage - just behind hippos (69 percent), tigers (70 percent), grizzly bears (73 percent), rhinoceroses (74 percent) and the overall winners, elephants (74 percent).

YouGov

But despite their relatively high rating, a total of eight percent of Americans felt they could take on a lion and win.

Sure, that's a small percentage of the general population, but still much higher than many of us probably would have expected.

The same percentage also felt they could beat a gorilla or elephant in a fight, while six percent thought they could tackle a grizzly bear.

YouGov continued: "There is effectively no gender difference when it comes to this top tier of opponents - men and women are about as (un)likely to think they could beat grizzlies, lions, gorillas and crocodiles in combat.

YouGov

"The differences start to emerge with wolves and kangaroos, which 16-17% of men think they could beat compared to 9-11% of women.

"One in five men think they could beat a chimpanzee (22%) or king cobra (23%) in a fight, while only 8-12% of women feel the same way.

"The gap is biggest when it comes to medium sized dogs (which 60% of men but only 39% of women think they could beat) and geese (71% vs 51%)."

Topics: Study, News, Animals, Lions

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman