Since tigers appeared in East Asia more than 2 million years ago, they have spread rapidly to most of Asia's forested areas, but they have not been able to leave Asia because of natural barriers such as rivers, oceans, and mountains.
After a long period of geographical isolation, the modern tiger has formed 9 different subspecies, namely the South China tiger, the Bengal tiger, the Sumatran tiger, the Siberian tiger, the Malay tiger, the Indochinese tiger, the Balinese tiger, the Caspian tiger, and the Javan tiger.
The latter three were extinct in the 1940s, 1970s, and 1980s, so there are only 6 species of tigers left in existence, so which of these 6 tigers is the largest?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > South China Tiger</h1>
The South China tiger is a tiger unique to China, which was once widely distributed, occupying almost half of China's forest areas. According to the results of some scientists' genetic sequencing of modern tigers in 2005, the South China tiger is the oldest of the modern tigers.
Because the South China tiger has been hunted in large numbers, its habitat has been lost, and it has become extinct in the wild, and the remaining individuals live in artificial environments such as zoos.
Adult South China tigers weigh 130-175 kg and have a head-tail length of 230-265 cm, while females weigh 100-115 kg and have a head-to-tail length of 220-240 cm.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="34" > Bengal tiger</h1>
The Bengal tiger is the largest of the 6 species of tigers in existence, with more than 3,000, so the international research data on the Bengal tiger is also the largest.
There are many records about the size of the Bengal tiger, which is a larger tiger. In the 1970s, seven adult male tigers were measured in Chitwan National Park and the average was 235 kg.
According to the data given by various research institutions and scholars, the male bengal tiger weighs 175-263 kg and the head and tail length are 260-330 cm, and the female tiger weighs 95-170 kg and the head and tail length is 239-268 cm.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="38" > Sumatran tiger</h1>
The Sumatran tiger is an island tiger that only exists on the island of Sumatra. Regarding the size of tigers, there is actually a law, that is, tigers in the island are generally much smaller than tigers on the mainland, whether it is a Sumatran tiger, or an extinct Balinese tiger and a Javan tiger.
Adult Sumatran tigers weigh 100–140 kg in males with a head-to-tail length of 220–255 cm; females weigh 75–110 kg and have a head-to-tail length of 215–230 cm. It is the smallest tiger in the world, second only to the Javanese and Balinese tigers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42" > Siberian tiger</h1>
The historical Siberian tiger is the largest modern tiger, and many wild histories will even describe it as more than 400 kilograms, and the folk generally believe that it can reach more than 350 kilograms.
According to a 2005 study by a group of Russian, Indian and American scientists, 1970 was a watershed year for the body size change of the Siberian tiger. Prior to this, the size of the Siberian tiger was generally larger; after that, the size of the Siberian tiger decreased a lot due to a large number of individuals being hunted, habitat reduction, inbreeding, prey level and many other factors.
The average weight of adult male tigers is only 176.4 kg, and the female tiger is even smaller, only 117.9 kg.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="45" > malay tiger</h1>
According to the Malay tiger data given by the World Wide Fund for Nature, the average male tiger weighs 120 kg and has a head-tail length of 235 cm; the average weight of the female tiger is 100 kg and the head-tail length is 200 cm.
Body size measurements have been taken on 21 male tigers and 16 female tigers in Terengganu And the weight range of male tigers is 47.2-129.1 kg, and the weight range of female tigers is between 24 and 88 kg.
Two sets of data, the former has a higher degree of confidence, and the latter is greatly influenced by the measured individual factor, so it cannot rise to the height of the species as representative data. The Malay tiger is a type of tiger that lives on the Malay Peninsula and is somewhere between the island tiger and the inland tiger.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="49" > Indochinese tiger</h1>
From the name point of view, the Indochinese tiger is like a specialty of India, but in fact it is only distributed in Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, of which Thailand is its most important distribution country, India does not have the distribution of Indochina tigers, but some areas on the southwest border of China, there are a very small number of Indochinese tigers.
The indochinese tiger is medium in size, with males weighing 150–195 kg and head-tail lengths of 255–285 m as adults, while females weigh 100–130 kg and head-tail lengths range from 230–255 m. It is worth mentioning that the Indochinese tiger has a darker coat and shorter and narrower stripes on its body.
Based on the body size data of the 6 types of tigers, the Sumatran tiger is the smallest among the existing tigers, which is not controversial. The penultimate tiger is the Malay tiger, followed by the South China tiger and the Indochinese tiger.
So is it the Siberian tiger first or the Bengal tiger? Judging from the 2005 study of the scientists, it is clear that the Bengal tiger is larger. But more than a decade later, has the size of the Siberian tiger rebounded?
For example, in April 2021, a 2-3-year-old male Siberian tiger broke into Mishan City, Heilongjiang Province, and people captured it and examined it and found that it weighed 225 kilograms.
At present, the habitat of the Siberian tiger, the environment has been greatly improved, the number of ungulate prey is also rising, a sub-adult tiger, already has such a high weight, what reason do we not believe that the size of the Siberian tiger is rising?
But is the Bengal tiger larger, or the Siberian tiger larger? There is still no definite answer, and the authoritative survey results that need to be updated will tell us the answer.