Panthera tigris (Tiger)
Adult Tiger
Description: The limbs are powerful and muscled, with long, sharp retractable claws. The skull is fore-shortened with powerful jaws.
In harsh climates hwere food can suddenly become scarce, they accumulate up to 5 cm of fat beneath the skin.
Coat: Black stripes on an orange background on the back and sides; underparts are mostly white with black stripes continuing into these areas. The skin is mostly pink and the back of the ears are black with a white central blotch, the tail is orange, paler towards the tip, with black bands along it, sometimes they are irregular, broken and joint. The eyes are pale green and the lower face, whiskers and eye-brows white.
Their are two rare colour types in the wild, one which is often seen in zoos, which is the white, not albino, form, this has chocolate brown stripes and blue eyes, the other is almost entirely black and very rare.
Males have a slight tuft on the back of their necks that resembles a young lions mane.
Size: Length 140-280 cm, tail length 60-90 cm.
Weight: 100-300kg. Males are larger and heavier than females.
Senses: Tigers are agile animals that can swim well.
Habitat: Extremely varied, from reedbeds to tropical rain forests, temperate mixed conifer to deciduous forest.
Dense cover, access to water and a dense population of ungulates are all prequsites for tiger habitat.
Adult Tiger
Range: Males and females occupy territories that they defend against same sex intruders. Females have smaller territories, and these are determined by the amount of food and water they require to raise theyr cubs and stay alive. Males attempt to maximise the amount of females territories they can defend, and their territories size depends on their strength and fighting ability.
All tiger populations seem to follow this system of territorial defense, however the size of their individual ranges varies with tiger and prey densities. Where prey densities are high females hold territories of 20sq km (8sq mi), where densities are lower they hold territories of 470sq km (188sq mi).
Territories are marked with droppings and other markers, such as sratch posts and urine sprays.
Sub-adults and other transient animals that are looking for a home range, move along the boundaries of other tigers territories and wait for an opening to take some land.
Fights do break out when defending their ranges and such battles can be fatal. To avoid unnessiscary violence tigers advertise their presence. Urine, mixed with anal gland secretions, is sprayed onto trees, bushes and rock faces, and feces and scrapes are left along trails, travel routes and other conspicuous places in their territory. These signals are like "no vacancey" signs, while they also convey other information, such as the individuals scent, age amd gender. When a tiger fails to mark their territory a new animal will usually move in within a few days or weeks.
Adult Tiger
Distribution: India, Se Asia, China and SE Russia.
Status: Rated endangered. Numbers are declining rapidly due to poaching, habitat loss and prey depletion.
In the 20th centry the estimated tiger numbers worldwide where about 100,000 and by the close of the centry only 5,000-7,500 are though to remain.
Poachers kill tigers to satisfy the growing demand for tiger bones for traditional Asian medicines and for skins as trophies. Although the trade in tiger bones is illegal and there are many attempts to control the continuing trade it is still substantial.
One of the problems with tigers surviving in protected areas is that their numbers become isolated from one another, plans are now being made to link up the areas with a network of conservation units and ecological corridors.
Man yareas that seem ideal land for tigers contain non, this is due to a lack of prey animals. Ulitmately tigers will only survive if the local people involved with them find it in their intrest to preserve them.
Daily Rhythm: The mostly hunt by night and rest through the day.
Voice: Females tigers roar to advertise when they are in estrus.
Enemies: Man is the tigers main enemy, killing them for their bones and pelts, killing all their prey animals and destroying their habitat.
Prey: Mostly large ungulates, including various wild deer, goats, buffalo, cattle and pig species. Will also take smaller prey such as monkeys, badgers and fish.
Food and Feeding: Tigers can eat 18-40kg of meat at a sitting and must kill 50-75 ungulates each year in order to survive.
Tigers stalk their prey and ambush it, they do not hunt in the open, using their coat to camoflauge them in heavy vegetation.
The sharp, retractile claws grab onto their prey when contact is made, the toe flattens to the body of the prey and the claws apper, peircing the preys hide. The prey is usually killed with a crushing bite to the back of the neck, though they sometimes grip the throat to strangle it.
Grouping: Social contact is maintained within tiger populations, but at a distance. Both sexes lead solitary lives though males have ranges that overlap with several females, each sex defends their territory from same sex intruders.
Breeding: Males have exclusive breeding rights with any females that have territories that overlap with his, as long as he can continue to defend them from other males.
Breeding can occur year round. Females in estrus advertise their condition by roaring frequently and scent marking more frequently. Once a couple get together they mate over a 2-4 day period, during which the female may be mounted as many as 30-40 times each day, with each session lasting about 10-15 seconds.
When a male takes over a home range he will aquaint himself with the females that come with his new home and if their are existing cubs he will kill them. This ensures that she will give birth to his own offsrping sooner.
Gestation: Averages at 103-106 days.
Litter Size: The average litters contain 2-4 cubs, however the full range is 1-7.
Young Description: The cubs are blind and helpless when they are born.
Tiger cub
Nest:
Young Care: After mating the males leaves the female and returns to his own territory, leaving the female to carry and raise their young alone. The cubs are dependant on their mothers milk for the first month, during this time they reamin in the den site and are carried to new ones for various reasons by the female in her mouth. They are not taken to kill sites until they are 1-2 months old, however they are not introduced to hunting, stalking and killing until they are 6 months old. They are fully weaned at about 5-6 months.
Although males are not involved with raising their young they do sometimes join the family group, feeding on the females kills with her and her cubs.
Cubs reamin dependant for at least 15 months and after this a gradual separation begins. The young tigers either leave on their own or are finally pushed out, often in time for the next litter to be born. Older mothers will sometimes allow a daughter to take over part or all of her range, this greatly increases her chance of survival and reproduction.
Sexual Maturity: Females reach sexual maturity at about 3-4 years, males slightly later at 4-5 years. It may take longer for a tiger to begin breeding than this, as they have to establish a territroy before they can begin.
Longevity: Have been known to survive 15 years in the wild and up to 26 years in zoos.
Geographical Variations:
Panthera tigris tigris (Bengal Tiger, Indian Tiger)
Distribution: India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, West Myanmar and Nepal.
Description: Coat: reddish-yellow to rust brown with white underside. Stripes black, as are ear backs with a white spot on the outside and entirely within.
Status: Critically endangered.
Panthera tigris corbetti (Indo-chinese Tiger)
Adult Indo-Chinese Tiger
Distribution: Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, East Myanmar, Thiland, Vietnam.
Description: Coat: darker than the Bengal Tiger, but lighter than the South Chinese.
Panthera tigris sumatrae (Sumatran Tiger)
(Adult Sumatran Tiger)
Distribution: Sumatra.
Description: Smaller than the Bengal Tiger.
Coat: stripes close set, loner cheek fur and a short mane on the neck.
Panthera tigris altaica (Amur Tiger, Siberian Tiger)
(Adult Siberian Tiger)
Distribution: Russia, China, North Korea.
Description: Coat: long and thick. Quite yellwo in winter but tinged with red in summer. White on belly and flanks, tail black and white banded without red or yellow at the base.
Status: Critically endangered.
Adult Siberian Tiger
Panthera tigris amoyensis (South China Tiger, South Chinese Tiger)
Distribution: China.
Description: Coat: reddish-ochre, white confined to underside.
Panthera tigris vargata (Caspian Tiger)
Distribution: Afghanistan, Iran, Chinese and Russian Turkestan and Turkey.
Description: Coat: Stripes less wide with browner sides. In winter hair on belly mane and top of head grows long but the nape mane remains short.
Status: Extinct.
Panthera tigris sondaica (Javan Tiger)
Distribution: Java.
Description: Coat: Stripes narrower.
Status: Almost extinct, 4-5 adults known in wild.
Panthera tigris balica (Bali Tiger)
Distribution: Bali.
Description: Smallest tiger.
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