Legend has it that the cat did not teach the tiger to climb trees, so it kept its name. But geese, people tigers can climb trees!
Tigers are no stranger to each of us, whether it is stories we heard as children, documentaries, cartoons, or zoos, tigers are almost everywhere. They are one of the largest cats in the world (yes, the other is a lion), and this sense of familiarity often leads us to mistakenly think that they are common and common. But no, that's not the case at all.
According to WWF estimates, there are fewer than 3,000 wild tigers left worldwide. This number, at the beginning of the 20th century, was one hundred thousand.
Why is the reduction so rapid? That must be the "credit" of our humanity. The expanding "territory" of humans is gradually encroaching on the tigers' territory. "One mountain does not allow two tigers" is not an exaggeration, they live alone, the sense of territory is huge, and a tiger needs a very large territory for survival in order to prey and other needs. At the same time as the area of human activity continues to expand, the contradiction between man and tiger has emerged. How to solve it? Hunt tigers! Perhaps in this hundred years, every tiger hunter thinks that he is a martial artist.
Tigers do not exist all over the world, they are endemic to Asia. Their footprints are all over the Asian continent, from the coast of China and Russia in the east, to the Caspian Sea and Turkey in the west, to Siberia in the north, and to sumatra in the south.
Tigers are felines We all know, are they saber-toothed tigers evolved? Large carnivorous meats appeared 7 million years ago and have since begun to evolve gradually. At that time, the carnivore-focused cats evolved multiple branches, one of which was the ancient cat.
Ancient cats have been divided into cats, true saber-toothed tigers and true cats, and after the Quaternary ice age, only true cats have survived, differentiating into two branches: cats and leopards. Today's tigers evolved from the leopard family in the real cat class. Doesn't that sound like a lot of winding? Hahaha, remember, tigers belong to the leopard genus of cats, and so are lions!
Auspicious Three Treasures Combination! In reality, such a scene cannot exist in the wild
Scientists have looked at tigers of various subspecies, with the Skull Structure of the South China Tiger closest to that of the original tiger and is thought to be the ancestor of other subspecies. Of the nine subspecies of the modern tiger, three are extinct, and the remaining six are listed as endangered, with some at critical risk. There is also a theory that there are only two subspecies of the tiger: the Continental Tiger (which includes the Siberian, South China, Indochina, Bengal, Malaya, and Caspian Tigers) and the Sunda Tiger (Sumatran, Javanese and Balinese).
Six extant species of tigers
Let's talk about these tigers that we have heard or not heard, seen or never had a chance to see again.
The Siberian tiger is probably the tiger that our countrymen are most familiar with. They are the largest subspecies, reaching up to 3 meters in length and the heaviest Siberian tiger on record at 300 kilograms! Their coat color is lighter than other tigers to adapt to the environment in the northern snowfield forest area. What a Korean tiger, a Siberian tiger, a Manchurian tiger, is all about it.
The Russian Far East is the main area where wild Siberian tigers are active, and it is sparsely populated and suitable for their survival. According to official Russian statistics in 2015, there are about 480-540 wild Siberian tigers in the region, including about 100 cubs. In China, there are only about 20 wild Siberian tigers in the Changbai Mountain area, Heilongjiang Guanda Mountain, and LaoyeLing.
South China tiger belongs to the unique tiger subspecies in China. They are medium in size, mostly no more than 2.5 meters long (plus tail) and weigh about 150 kg. As the name suggests, the South China tiger, inhabiting the south China region of China, is an endemic species in China. The South China tiger has darker coats, probably the fewest number of stripes on its fur, and a significantly smaller skull, closer to the tiger's immediate ancestors.
Wu Song fought the south China tiger.
An interesting fact is that the scientific name of the South China tiger is Panthera tigris amoyensis. Amoyensis here means "Xiamen".
Well? What does it have to do with Xiamen? At the beginning of the 19th century, the American naturalist Cardwell went to Fujian to hunt tigers to make specimens, and accidentally found a new tiger species in Xiamen Island that was smaller than the Siberian tiger, with a dark coat color and a "wang" stripe on the head, so he announced like the world that this tiger was called "Xiamen Tiger".
Speaking of South China tigers, they all think of "Zhou Tigers"
Unfortunately, after a wild South China tiger was hunted in 1994, there was no record of any south China tiger surviving in the wild, and scientists believe that they have become extinct in the wild.
The Jiaohu in "Kung Fu Panda" is also based on the South China Tiger
The Indochina tiger is not in India, but in the Indochina Peninsula. It was formerly known as "Indochina", hence the name. They are also not as large as the Siberian tiger, with a body size of about 2.5 meters and large white markings on the abdomen, throat and cheeks.
Like all other subspecies of tigers, the Indochinese tiger has declined dramatically over the past hundred years due to habitat destruction and human hunting, and currently has an endangered population of about 220 in the wild.
In 2017, Thailand observed wild Indochina tigers in the wild, one of the fruits of 15 years of restoration by the local government, which excited many people.
The Malayan tiger, which is found only in southern Thailand and Malaysia on the Malay Peninsula, has long been regarded as a branch of the Indochinese tiger. In 2004 , after professional testing , it was determined that they were a new tiger subspecies.
In terms of appearance, Malaya and Indochinese tigers are not much different (no wonder Encyclopedia Jun can't see it), but in terms of size, malayan tigers are obviously smaller, and they are one of the smallest tigers. The average weight of the male tiger is only 129 kilograms, and the body length from head to tail is about 2.5 meters, which is very slim
In Malaysia, the Malay tiger is one of their symbols and has appeared on many occasions, including the national emblem of Malaysia.
Sumatran Tiger – A species of tiger distributed over the Sumatra Archipelago, it is the smallest tiger in existence. The Sumatran tiger is the third tiger subspecies to live in Indonesia in addition to the Balinese tiger and the Javan tiger; since both tiger subspecies are extinct, the only surviving member of the three tiger subspecies of the Sunda Islands group, and therefore the only tiger subspecies currently left in Indonesia, and is critically endangered.
They weigh no more than 150 kg for males and 110 kg for females, and have the darkest coat color of any surviving subspecies of tiger.
I'm not tanned
According to WWF, due to the great demand for tiger skins and other parts in the Indonesian domestic market, especially the use of tiger claws and tiger teeth to make trophies, amulets and souvenirs, this has led to the relentless killing of Sumatran tigers by professional and semi-professional hunters, which is the main reason they face extinction. The Balinese tiger and the Javan tiger, as we mentioned earlier, are two other species that have existed in Indonesia and became extinct in the 1940s and 1980s, respectively. Hopefully, the Sumatran tiger doesn't become the third.
The Bengal tiger, also known as the Indian tiger and the South Asian tiger, is currently the subspecies of the most abundant and widely distributed tiger. Their habitat is mainly in India and Bangladesh. There are also small numbers of Bengal tigers in Nepal, Bhutan and China.
Why is the most widely distributed number? Because India is the most tolerant country for tigers. According to a BBC report in March, the country owns only 25% of the world's tiger habitat, but has 70% of the world's remaining wild tigers. The tolerant outlook on life, which allows others to live by oneself, is the cultural foundation on which India can become the world's largest tiger home. In world culture, tigers and elephants are symbols of India, but in India, tigers hurt and even eat people very often.
The ratio of man to tiger is high
Others, the Balinese tiger, the Javan tiger and the Caspian tiger, are extinct species. According to the data, the last Balinese tiger was hunted in 1937, the time of the Javan tiger's extinction has been mentioned earlier, and the last Caspian tiger was discovered in 1986 and has not been seen since.
Balinese tiger hunted in 1913
The Balinese tiger is actually the smallest, weighing less than 100 kilograms and 2.3 meters long, perhaps because it is not as large as other big cats, making humans think that they are "good bullies".
Javanese tiger
Caspian tiger
The Caspian tiger, also known as the Persian tiger, is the only subspecies of tiger that has survived in Central Asia, but unfortunately, we will not see it anymore.
Today is World Tiger Love Day, in fact, when it comes to this, it is still full of heaviness. Beasts that looked incomparably terrifying and ferocious, so fragile in the face of humans. I hope that human beings can truly realize how important the existence of other species on the earth is to ourselves, and if we cannot realize this, then the efforts of more people will be in vain. Wen 丨 searched for encyclopedia Jun
Figure丨 Instagram, Google, Wikipedia
Source: WWF, Wikipedia, BBC