Tigers, also known as tigers, are big cats, endemic to Asia, with a strong sense of territory, will divide their own geographical range, and live alone. They often require large areas of habitat to meet a considerable number of prey. Tigers are predatory carnivores with sharp hearing, night vision, and in addition to their large size and powerful muscles, the most obvious feature is the black vertical stripes on their white to orange fur.
Realm: Animal kingdom Animalia
Phylum: Chordata phylum Chordata
Order: Mammalia
Eyes: Meat meat carnivora
Family: Felidae
Genus: Panthera
Species: Tiger P. tigris
The skeleton of the tiger
Tigers evolved from ancient carnivores. Large carnivorous meat emerged and developed in the Cenozoic Tertiary Pliocene, 7 million years ago. The cats in the paleo-carnivorous evolved multiple branches, one of which was the ancient cat, which was divided into cats, true saber-toothed tigers and true cats, and after the Quaternary ice age, only true cats survived, differentiating into two branches, cats and leopards. Today's tigers evolved from the leopard family in the real cat class.
Restoration of the skull of the Dragon Bear tiger, an extinct tiger relative whose fossil remains were found in northwestern China.
Panthera zdanskyi is a genus of cats and leopards that lived in the early Pleistocene about 2.55 to 2.16 million years ago. The skull was excavated in Gansu, China.
From the perspective of morphological analysis, it has a high degree of similarity with the existing tiger and is closely related to the tiger. However, the dragon tiger did not evolve from a tiger branch, but an ancient primitive species that evolved from a separate branch that shared the same ancestor as the tiger, so the name of the dragon tiger does not necessarily mean that it is a "tiger" in the true sense.
Bengal tigers
In 1758, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus named the tiger "Felis tigris", and the model origin was Bangladesh, and new tiger subspecies were discovered.
In 1929 Reginald Bocock changed the name to "Panthera tigris tigris".
In 1968, Czech biologist Vladyslav Mazak believed that tigers were divided into 8 subspecies, 3 of which had been extinct.
It is now widely believed that tigers are divided into 9 subspecies, 3 of which have been extinct.
Sumatran tiger
Another controversial study suggests that, taking into account genetics and morphology, tigers have only two subspecies, the Panthera tigris sondaica formed by the Sumatran tiger, the Javanese tiger and the Balinese tiger, and the panthera tigris tigris that contain other tigers, but are not accepted by most researchers.
Another whole-gene analysis in 2018 showed that the evolutionary clades of six extant subspecies are still valid, and their common ancestors began to evolve separately about 110,000 years ago.
There are 6 extant subspecies of the tiger
3 extinct subspecies
Hybrid
liger
The product of the hybridization of male lions and female tigers is called Liger, and like lions and tigers, they are members of the genus Leopard in the family Cats. It resembles a lion, but has tiger stripes.
The captive hybrid offspring of male tigers and female lions are called tiger lions (English: Tigon), which is a rarer hybrid than lion tigers.
The offspring of male lions and female lions are called Liliger, and due to the low fertility of lions and tigers, the number of lions and lions is extremely rare.
White Tiger of Bengal
The Bengal White Tiger is a variant of the Bengal Tiger. Due to a genetic mutation (but not albinism), the bengal tiger's original orange-yellow black stripes turned into black stripes on a white background. The fur of the white tiger is a very pale milky white with dark brown stripes. The eyes appear transparent and colorless in sunlight and pale blue in the backlight. The first wild Bengal white tiger was discovered and captured in India in 1951 and was named "Mohan". The hundreds of existing white tigers in the world are all its descendants.
Further genetic mutations by the white tiger produce snow tigers, which are almost snow-white and invisible.
Blue Tiger
In 1910, the American missionary Harry Caldwell reported witnessing blue tigers in the Fujian region of China, and he recorded his discovery in the book Blue Tiger (1924).
The blue tiger diagram drawn by the artist above is not a real photo.
Morphological characteristics of tigers
The tiger's body is covered with light yellow to red fur, with black to brown stripes, which can be integrated with the grass background, and is a good concealment color to avoid being found by prey. The abdomen and the medial sides of the limbs are white or white and yellowish. Summer hairs are short and smooth, while winter hairs are significantly longer. The markings on each tiger's face are different, similar to human fingerprints.
The tiger's iris is yellow with rounded pupils. Tigers have 6 times more night vision than humans, because tigers have a special membrane layer called a blanket behind the retina that enhances the stimulation of the retina by reflecting light within, thereby improving night vision to 6 times that of humans. This is also the reason why tiger eyes glow at night.
Tigers have black ears with distinct white spots, which some scientists believe help the cubs follow their mothers in the wild. Tigers have a keen hearing, are particularly sensitive to high-frequency sound waves, up to 70 kHz, and both ears can be turned with the source of the sound waves. In the wild forest, tigers can hear calls from 2 kilometers away.
Cats have different beards of different lengths and thicknesses, and the tiger's whiskers are very sharp, which can help the tiger explore the road at night, and can feel the distance and width from the object. Under normal circumstances, where the width of the beard can pass, the tiger itself can pass smoothly.
The teeth of the Siberian tiger
Tigers attack their prey through their stout, powerful canine teeth, but tear off the flesh from their bones through straight-line molars, so they eat meat with their heads sideways and do not chew.
The adult tiger's tongue is about 30 centimeters and its front is covered with barbs that facilitate licking the flesh off the bones of its prey. At the same time, it also has the effect of drinking water and regulating body temperature.
The front and rear limbs of the tiger are very powerful, and the forelimbs are more powerful than the hind limbs. Because of its wide limbs, tigers are one of the few beasts that can swim.
Side view of the tiger's full body skeleton
Tigers have 5 toes on their forefoots and 4 toes on their hind feet, with sharp claws at the ends of their toes. It can be freely retracted and retracted, and when walking or running, the claws will retract into the bone claw sheath to avoid wear. If the claws are blunt, it will be impossible to hunt, and even self-preservation is a problem, so it is necessary to grind off the aging horn and keep the claws sharp, and many cats often have the habit of grinding claws. If the claw lacks grip, it will bend inward, affect walking and easily stab the meat pad on the foot. At the same time, the smell is left through the grinding claws, marking the territorial division of spheres of influence.
The tiger's palm pads are toe-shaped, soft and elastic, so that they can walk silently on the ground. Their size is related to their age. In population surveys, researchers often use this to identify individuals.
The tail of the tiger is long, consisting of 25-30 segments of tail vertebrae, about 1 meter long (about half the body length), with circular markings. The tip of the tail has no long hairs and is grayish-black. Maintain balance and control steering when running at high speeds.
The state and mood can be judged by observing the performance of the tiger's tail: the tip of the tail is cocked and constantly shaking, accompanied by a low roar to represent the state of alert, while the tail gently swings with a nasal sound of "spray, spray" is a friendly gesture.
Another function of the tail is to repel mosquitoes.
There are three basic conditions for tiger habitat
There must be enough animal resources for them to hunt.
They must have enough water sources for bathing when they are hot and drinking water after a full meal.
There must be enough trees or abundant grass for them to hide. In particular, it is necessary to pay attention to the third point, if not, not only is it not conducive to the hunting of tigers, but also to their avoidance of humans, the natural enemies of all wild animals.
Pictured: Bengal tiger
Siberian tigers inhabit dense forests in low mountains below 1000 m above sea level, and the basic forest type is mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests. It also often feeds in weedy forests, high grass shrubs, and meadows.
The South China tiger is mainly distributed in the remote mountainous areas of Hunan, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. It is found in sparsely populated and animal-rich forest areas.
The Indochinese tiger mainly inhabits tropical rainforests and evergreen broad-leaved forests.
Bengal tiger is a montane forest animal with strong adaptability to the living environment, and can live in tropical rain forests, evergreen broad-leaved forests, deciduous broad-leaved forests, and mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests. It is also commonly found on ridges, shrublands and rocky mountains.
The tiger is a large carnivore. In the wild, tigers mostly prey on large and medium-sized animals, especially local ungulates, which generally weigh more than 90 kg. Tigers generally have no or only a small adverse effect on their prey populations.
In the wild, tigers mostly prey on large and medium-sized animals. Such as sambar deer, flower deer, zee deer, wild boar, Indian bison and blue wildebeest, as well as wild and domesticated buffalo. Tigers also prey on other predators, including leopards, dogs, wolves, pythons, sloth bears, and crocodiles. Tigers can kill an adult Indian rhinoceros, and adult elephants are too large for tigers to choose to hunt them, but tigers occasionally kill young, small elephants.
In Siberia, their main prey is red deer and wild boar (these two prey species make up 80% of its food source), and include sika deer, elk, eastern roe deer and musk, and juvenile Asian black bears and northeast brown bears are sometimes prey for tigers.
In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, domesticated buffalo are tigers' favorite prey. Elsewhere in India, tigers prefer to prey on Indian bison and sambar deer and are their main food source.
On Sumatra, tigers prey on sambar deer, mountain qiang, wild boar, Malay tapirs and orangutans. If you add the extinct Caspian tiger, the prey also includes saiga antelope, camels, Caucasian bison, yaks and wild horses.
Like many carnivores, they are "opportunists" and eat smaller prey such as monkeys, peacocks, hares, and fish.
In general, tigers do not hunt humans, and usually injuring people is a last resort. Unlike tigers that generally injure or bite people to death, "man-eating tigers" refer to tigers that have developed the habit of cannibalism. Their numbers are minimal, but in the past they also pose a serious threat to the peoples of some countries in South-East Asia. There was a "Chambawa man-eating beast" that killed or ate 436 lives in five or six years (about 200 of which were in Nepal and later transferred to India).
The captured Chambawa eats man-eating tigers
As for the reason why tigers become "man-eating beasts", the American hunter Colbett explained that nine out of ten man-eating tigers are due to injuries, and only one tenth is because of old age. These two situations make it difficult for the tiger to hunt wild animals, so they have to take the risk. And when it finds it easier to hunt people, it is easy to lose its "fearful" nature.
Tigers are nocturnal predators that often hunt at night, however, in no-man's land, humans have been found to hunt during the day through remotely controlled hidden cameras.
Tigers usually hunt alone, ambushing their prey, using their bodies and strength to throw large prey out of balance. Even if tigers weigh a lot, they can still reach speeds of about 49-65 kilometers per hour, but they can only maintain this speed for a short time — because their endurance is relatively small. Therefore, before exposing itself, the tiger must be very close to its prey.
Tigers have a strong jumping ability, and have been reported to jump 10 meters horizontally at a time, although the more typical value is about half of the record.
Despite such outstanding abilities, on average, tigers have only been successful in 20 hunts.
Tigers can climb trees, and they are fast.
When hunting large prey, tigers like to bite their throats and grab the prey with their forelimbs and drag it to the ground. The tiger bites on the neck of the prey until the prey suffocates. In this way, Indian bison and buffalo weighing more than a ton can be killed by tigers weighing only one-sixth of their weight.
For small prey, tigers tend to bite the nape of their neck, break the spinal cord, pierce the trachea, or cut off the internal jugular vein or carotid artery.
Adult tigers live alone, and only in special circumstances, such as abundant food, do they gather briefly. They establish and maintain their territorial boundaries. After each tiger occupies a territory, it will drive away all the large predators such as wolves and leopards in the area.
Adult tigers, regardless of gender, tend to limit their activities to a certain area, that is, within the territory. The territory needs to be able to meet their living needs, and for female tigers, it also needs to meet the needs of their children.
The size of the tiger's range of activity depends mainly on the richness of the prey. For male tigers, the opportunity to come into contact with female tigers is also included. A female tiger can generally have a territory of 20 square kilometers, while a male tiger has a much larger territory, about 60 to 100 square kilometers. The territory of a male tiger often overlaps with that of several female tigers, providing a wide range of potential mates.
The relationship between individual tigers is complex, and tigers do not seem to follow certain rules when it comes to territorial rights and territorial violations. For example, while tigers avoid their peers in most cases, both female and male tigers have been found to share prey.
Male tigers are less tolerant of other tigers of the same sex in their territory than female tigers. In most cases, however, territorial disputes are resolved not through naked aggression, but through threats and intimidation. It has been observed that weaker tigers usually show obedience by tumbling to the ground and revealing their bellies in a deferential gesture. Once dominance is established, the male tiger is likely to tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as he does not live too close to it. The fiercest fights often occur between two male tigers when the female is in heat, and sometimes even one of the male tigers dies, although this phenomenon is very rare.
Male tigers mark their territory by spraying urine and secretions from the glands, while also leaving marks on their tracks through excrement.
When the estrus state is judged by sniffing the female tiger's urine markers, the male tiger will turn his lips back so that his face looks like a "twist", a phenomenon called "split lip olfactory reaction".
Mating of tigers can occur throughout the year, peaking from November to April.
Females have a gestation period of about 16 weeks and give birth to 3-4 cubs per clutch. The cubs weigh 1-1.2 kg at birth, weaned 6-8 weeks after childbirth, and the cubs are born without vision and cannot stand on their own. Female tigers raise them alone, hiding them in nests such as bushes and crevices in rocks. In general, the cub's father does not raise them, and an unrelated male tiger that wanders nearby may even kill the cub to make the female tiger accept it. The mortality rate of tiger cubs is quite high, and about half of them live no more than 2 years.
It takes about 18 months for the cubs to become independent, but they don't leave their mother until they reach 2 to 2 and a half years of age. It takes about 3-4 years for females to reach sexual maturity, while it takes 4-5 years for males.
Tiger growth stages are divided into:
Cubs < 12 months
Juveniles are 1 to 2 years old
Sub-adults > 2 to 3 years old
Young-adults > 3 to 5 years old
Prime-adults > 5 to 10 years old
Old-adults > 10 years old
The highest mortality rate for adult tigers (30-35% per year) is when they are just maturing, when young adult tigers leave their homeland to seek their territory.
When young female tigers establish a territory first, they tend to bring it closer to their mother's area. The overlap between the female tiger and her mother's territory tends to decrease over time. However, male tigers travel farther and set out earlier than females to mark their territory. A young male tiger will seek a territory with no other male tigers to establish a territory, or live briefly in the territory of another male tiger until he is mature and powerful enough to challenge the male tiger.
Estimated number of live tigers in the wild worldwide
A variety of techniques were used to study wild tigers. Previously, the number of tigers was estimated by imprinting footprints with plaster, and this method was criticized for being inaccurate.
Some of the more modern methods use camera traps and DNA from feces for research, while also using radio collars to track tigers in the wild.
The tiger's survival crisis
In the early 20th century, there were about 100,000 wild tigers in the world, but this number has dropped sharply to 1,500 to 3,000. The distribution area of the subspecies has been extremely narrowed, the distribution area is very fragmented, and the population population is declining and it is in an endangered state.
The Hunted Javan Tiger, 1941
The main threat facing tigers
Habitat loss: Tigers are endemic to Asia, where population surges have necessitated tigers to compete with humans for living space in densely populated areas. Population pressures in countries of origin of tigers such as India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh have greatly reduced the tiger's living space.
Illegal hunting: Tigers' beautiful fur has long been sought after by the carpet, hanging and fur markets, and tiger products such as tiger bones are also regarded as miracle drugs, which has made illegal hunting a long-lasting success. The conflict between tigers and the inhabitants of the reserve is also the cause of hunting.
Threats to genetic diversity: Currently, most tiger populations are fewer than 100 individuals, and fewer than half of the individuals are suitable for breeding. Inbreeding is not uncommon, which leads to a decline in the genetic diversity and genetic quality of the population.
Natural disasters: Small, isolated tiger populations are highly vulnerable to natural disasters, and forest fires, floods, storms, etc. caused by environmental degradation pose a great threat to tigers. At the same time, due to the decline in genetic quality, the ability of tiger populations to resist the spread of diseases is reduced, which greatly increases the destructive power of epidemic diseases on tigers.
International Forum on The Conservation of Tigers
Held in St. Petersburg, Russia, from 21 to 24 November 2010, the Forum is the highest level of international tiger conservation conference held to date. The meeting was attended by the heads of government of China, Russia, Bangladesh, Laos and Nepal, as well as dozens of international organizations and government agencies, including the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the International Wildlife Conservation Society. Topics at the international forum included the exchange of national tiger recovery plans, financial security mechanisms and global tiger recovery plans. The meeting adopted the Declaration of heads of Government of the countries with a global distribution of wild tigers and the Global Strategy for the Conservation and Restoration of Tiger Populations.
The declaration declares that by 2022, the Year of the Tiger will seek to double the number of wild tigers distributed globally. At the same time, in order to achieve this goal, the Declaration makes a number of commitments:
Effectively manage and protect wild tigers and improve the habitat of wild tigers.
Combat and eliminate related crimes such as poaching, smuggling and illegal trafficking in tiger products.
Widely mobilize the inhabitants of wild tiger habitat areas to participate in biodiversity conservation, reduce adverse impacts on wild tigers and their food and habitat, and provide necessary financial and technical support for the relocation of local populations.
Improve the management and maintenance of wild tigers and their habitats.
Explore and experiment with new financing mechanisms.
International financial institutions are called upon to provide financial and technical support to make due contributions to the conservation of wild tigers.
It is expected that a multi-channel dedicated trust fund for wild tiger conservation will be established.
29 July of each year is designated as Global Tiger Day and events are held to raise public awareness of wild tiger conservation.
At the forum, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed Russia's enthusiasm and confidence in saving tigers, noting that Russia and China have developed a joint action plan and established a special transnational protection zone. Wen Jiabao, Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, stressed the great importance that the Chinese government attaches to the protection of wild tigers and the trend of further strengthening the protection of wild tigers.
The Forum designates 29 July of each year as Global Tiger Day.
Source: Animal World
Editor: Lin Wensheng Review: Zhan Linxing Producer: Fu Wenyuan