According to the traditional rule of nine, there are 6 subspecies of tigers, of which the largest number in the wild, the fastest growing is the Bengal tiger, and on World Tiger Day 2019, India announced that there are 2967 Bengal tigers in its territory, accounting for about 60% of the total number of wild tigers. At first glance, the Bengal tiger seems to be free from the threat of extinction, but in an inconspicuous corner of South Asia, there is a population of Bengal tigers that is silently dying out, this population is known for its petite size and cannibalism, which is the Sundarbans tiger.
The Sundarbans tiger is not an independent subspecies, but a regional population of Bengal tigers, similar to the relationship between the Xinjiang tiger and the Caspian tiger. Sundelbens Tiger, also known as Sundarbans Tiger or Sun Menghu, also known as swamp tigers, lives in the Sundelbans Delta on the border between India and Bangladesh, and is the only remaining tiger population living in mangroves.
Approximate location of Sundarbans National Park
Sundarbans, part of the Ganges Delta that straddles India and Bangladesh and borders the Bay of Bengal to the south, covering an area of over 10,000 square kilometers, has been established as a Sundarbans National Park and is listed as a World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve. Sundarbans National Park is a tropical estuarine mangrove swamp, one of the largest mangrove areas in the world, growing about 65 species of plants, in addition to the Sundarbans tiger, there are bay crocodiles, fishing cats, ocelots, macaques, pangolins, Ganges pufferfish and other precious animals.
We often say that the Bengal tiger is a large tiger, usually referring to the Bengal tiger population other than the Sundarbans tiger, if you count the Sun tiger, the size of the Bengal tiger will be pulled down a large section, so how small is the Sun tiger? Let's compare it.
According to the distribution area, the Bengal tiger is mainly divided into the northern Menghu, the central Menghu, the southern Menghu and the Sunhu. The size (mainly weight) of Bengal tigers in each region is as follows.
1. The northern Menghu is distributed in northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and southeastern Tibet in China.
Cooch Behar's hunting team hunted 365 Bengal tigers over a 40-year period in assam, Bengal and West Bengal in northeastern India, with 50 recorded male adult tigers weighing an average of 208 kg and a range of 168-248 kg. The 10 adult female tigers weigh an average of 141 kg and range from 118 to 163 kg.
The North Menghu in Bhutan
The 7 adult male tigers weighed by Smith (1983) and Sunquist (1981) weighed an average of 235 kg in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, with a range of 200-261 kg, and 16 adult female tigers weighed an average of 140 kg and ranged from 116-164 kg. Sunquist said that it was caught by food trapping, so about 16 kilograms of stomach contents were subtracted, and because the male tiger ate a large amount and the female tiger ate a small amount, the average male tiger in Nepal's Chitwan National Park weighed about 210-215 kg and the female tiger about 130 kg.
2. Central Menghu is distributed in protected areas in central India.
The famous Indian naturalist Brander mentioned in "Indian Wildlife" that 42 male tigers from Kanha Park in Madhya Pradesh weighed an average of 191 kg and ranged from 160-234 kg; 39 female tigers weighed an average of 131 kg and ranged from 124-156 kg. Chundawatt (2005) weighed a 240-kilogram adult male tiger named Madla in Panna National Park. There is also an unscrammed one estimated at 250 kg.
The average body length (excluding tail length) of the northern and central Menghu is about 188 cm, and the average female is about 166 cm.
3. The southern Menghu is distributed in the protected areas of southern India, the most famous of which is Nagarhore National Park in Karnataka.
The 3 male tigers weighed by Karanth (1993) in Nagarhore National Park weighed an average of 246 kg, ranging from 230-257 kg, which was weighed in a satiety state, and after removing the stomach contents, the average weight was about 217 kg. A female tiger weighs 177 kg, about 160 kg after removing the stomach contents.
4. Sun Hu
Sun Hu's measured data is very small. A 150-kilogram male tiger was reported in 2008. Kundu (2010) weighed 2 male tigers of 98 kg and 118 kg respectively, and the three male tigers above weighed 122 kg each. The three female tigers weighed by Barlow (2009) weighed an average of 76.67 kg and ranged from 75-80 kg, with two of them aged 12-14 and 3-4 years.
There are two other versions: 2 male tigers weighing an average of 145 kg and 4 female tigers weighing 85 kg. The average weight of the five male tigers is 114 kg, and the average weight of the five female tigers is 76 kg. According to the more samples the more representative, the Sundelbens tiger weighs about 110-120 kg in males and 76 kg in females.
This is almost on par with the smallest surviving subspecies of the tiger, the Sumatran tiger, and the male sun tiger is smaller than the female Menghu in other regions. As part of the Bengal tiger, why is Sun Hu so small?
Because sun tiger is too small, it has been proposed to be independently a subspecies of tiger, but studies have proved that Sun tiger is not far from the Menghu in other regions.
A famous male Sun Hu - Nantu
Y.jhalla of the Wildlife Research Institute of India shows that animals that have been separated for one million years are usually classified as different species, and animals separated for 20,000-50,000 years are different subspecies, taking into account the mutation rate of genetic variation. The Sundarbans tiger separated from the Bengal tiger in the adjacent region about 500-1000 years ago. Such a short period of time cannot reach the level of subspecies division. Since Sun Hu has been separated from Meng Hu in other regions for a short time, why has it become so small?
The first important reason is the environment. The Sundarbans Delta lacks solid land, a swampy area of silt and mangrove roots, much of which is submerged at high tide, where animals are either soaked in water, hung on red branches, or barely standing in a small number of unsubmerized areas. Although the tiger has excellent water properties, it cannot withstand being immersed in water for a long time, and its smaller size is convenient for walking on soft mud and requires less space.
Leopards, known for their adaptability, also cannot survive in the Sundarbans Delta, as leopards need tall trees to hide and hide food in areas where they coexist with tigers. The Sundarbans Delta lacks tall trees, and leopards can only compete with tigers on the ground. Although Sun Hu is small, he is still much larger than the leopard, and the leopard cannot compete and has to withdraw from this area.
Sun Hu's main prey, the flower deer
The second important reason is food. The species, density and size of mammals in mangrove swamps are not as good as in other parts of South Asia, where ungulates live mainly flower deer and wild boar, weighing only about 50 kilograms. The main prey of Bengal tigers in other parts of South Asia is sambar deer and zee deer, which can grow up to hundreds of kilograms. The amount of food is small and small, Sun Hu also has to reduce its body size to reduce energy consumption, coupled with the fact that it does not need much size to subdue the prey, and the large size is a burden to Sun Hu, so Sun Hu is gradually smaller.
The lack of food makes it hungry, and the tiger here will even prey on fish, lizards and crabs, animals that other tigers look down upon.
The picture above is a list of the weights of Sun Hu's prey, in order: 47.0 kg of flower deer, 32.0 kg of wild boar, 4.0 kg of ordinary macaques, 8.0 kg of Indian crested porcupine, 3.0 kg of ocelot, 4.0 kg of vulture stork, 0.6 kg of raw chicken, 0.3 kg of green crab. Except for the larger flower deer and wild boar, the rest are small animals.
Records show that large animals such as Javan rhinos, Asian wild buffaloes, and deer once lived in the Sundarbans region, which completely disappeared more than a hundred years ago, so the size of the Sun Tiger may have only become smaller in the last hundred years.
Inbreeding also has some effects but is not the main cause. Rivers and tides cut off the area from tigers, making it feel like an island. But Sun Hu had more than a few hundred before this century, enough to avoid inbreeding. Therefore, the main reason is that the food is scarce and the environment is small and forced to shrink in size.
Although small but extremely fierce, Sun Hu is a well-known man-eating tiger, which is the tiger that has been recorded by humans to hurt the most people. There are many documentaries about Sun Hu, all named after "Man-Eating Tiger".
Beasts of prey generally do not attack humans, but Sun Hu is different, they taste the sweetness of human blood and can never forget it. Sun Hu is one of the very few beasts that will actively attack humans and use humans as food. The researchers said: The Sundarbans area lacks fresh water and food, and Sun Hu has long drunk salt water, making it more ferocious and bloodthirsty.
According to incomplete statistics, as many as 4218 people died in the six years from 1860 to 1866, an average of 703 people per year, close to 2 people per day. An estimated 9,550 people were killed by tigers between 1881 and 2006, an average of 76 per year. In the past 40 years, more than 1,000 people have been killed by tigers. This is only a rough statistic, and the actual numbers may be more. Between 1881 and 2006, 1,259 tigers were killed by humans.
The Ganges Delta was a densely populated area long ago, and the abundance of seafood and quality honey beeswax in the mangroves attracts people to risk their lives to come and pick them. People would wear masks on the back of their heads to scare Sun Hu away, but that wouldn't work at all. Sun Hu would take advantage of the fact that people were not paying attention to launch raids from the mangroves. Locally, women whose husbands were killed by Sun Hu are called "tiger widows", and to this day there are still hundreds of "tiger widows" living a difficult life in the Sundarbans area.
With the decline in the number of Sun Hu and the intervention of protection organizations, the number of Sun Hu attacks on people is decreasing year by year, and the conflict between man and tiger is being eased. Locals have always worshipped tigers as gods, trying to find a way to live in harmony with tigers, but time is running out for both sides.
Dipankar Ghose, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Species and Landscape Program, said the number of Sun Tigers in Bangladesh decreased from 440 to 106 between 2004 and 2015. Combined with India's domestic, the total number of Sun Hu does not exceed 200. The total number of Bengal tigers is rising, but the number of Sun tigers is declining.
A Sun Hu was released
Sharif Mukul, an assistant professor at the Independent University of Bangladesh, said rising sea levels and reduced rainfall had increased the salt content in the waters, causing the Sundelbans tiger to shrink and large areas of mangrove death. If sea levels continue to rise, the Sundarbans tiger may disappear by 2070. This is a very optimistic estimate, and the actual situation may be worse. Rampant poaching has also led to a large reduction in the number of flowers and deer, the main prey of Sun Hu, which is also an important reason for the decrease in the number of Sun Hu.
Ritur Saha, a member of the World Wildlife Fund's Sundarbans Regional Project, said: "To protect the Sundarbans tiger, India and Bangladesh should look for areas where mangroves thrive and transplant trees from these areas to dry areas. A number of measures are essential to enhance the region's capacity for climate recovery. Protecting tigers requires sustained attention to the restoration and protection of tiger habitats.
Some say tigers in the Sundarbans area nearly disappeared more than a hundred years ago. But they survived tenaciously, crawling in this hot, damp and muddy swamp, they did not want to leave, but how long could they hold out?