Environmental and social pressures can result in interspecies differences in marking behaviours. There is a strong relationship between marking behaviour and the environment. Therefore, closely related species that show behavioural differences in the wild may have different scent marking strategies. We conducted a comparative study of the urine-marking behaviours of tigers and lions in captivity (Madrid Zoo, open enclosures of 514 m² and 730 m² respectively, observations of 8 animals for each species). These two closely related species have different natural habitats. We observed interspecific differences in the rates, seasonal variations, and durations of the urine-marking acts. The marking rate was higher in tigers, which also showed seasonal variations not observed in lions. The duration of urine marking was lower in tigers than in lions. These differences seem to correspond to differences between tigers and lions in terms of their natural habitats (forest areas vs open areas), social organizations (solitary vs social), and reproductive biology patterns (seasonal polyoestrous vs annual polyoestrous).
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