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All About Tigers
Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Genus/Species: Panthera tigris
Subspecies: There is only one species of tiger in
the world - Panthera tigris, but it is divided up into 9
distinct, geographically separate groups which are yet not distinct
enough to constitute separate species called subspecies. Of the 9
subspecies of tigers, three are extinct. The remaining subspecies
are:
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The Amur
tiger Panthera tigris altaica that lives in the
Russian Far East,
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The Bengal
tiger Panthera tigris tigris that lives in India Bhutan,
Nepal and Bangladesh,
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The IndoChinese
tiger Panthera tigris corbetti that lives in Vietnam, Laos,
Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar,
-
South
China Tiger Panthera tigris amoyensis that is thought
to live in mountainous regions in south China, but there have been no
recent confirmed sightings in the wild.
-
The Malayan
tiger Panthera tigris jacksoni that lives in Malaysia
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The Sumatran
tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae that lives on the
island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
The three exinct subspecies of tiger are:
-
The Caspian
tiger Panthera tigris virgata that once ranged in
Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Mongolia, and the Central Asiatic area of
Russia and probably went extinct in the 1950's.
-
The Javan
tiger, Panthera tigris sondaica, formerly ranged on the
Indonesian island of Java and was last seen in 1972.
-
The Bali
tiger, Panthera tigris balica, once lived on Bali,
where the last tiger was believed to have been killed in 1937.
Eating
 Over much of the tiger's broad geographic range, wild pig,
wild cattle and several species of deer are its major prey. All prey are
forest or grassland ungulates that range in size from 65 to 2,000 pounds
(30-900 kg). Typically, wild tigers gorge themselves on fresh kills, and
can eat as much as 40 pounds (18 kg) of meat at one time. The tiger will
not eat again for several days.
Unlike wild tigers which kill their prey and then gorge, tigers that
live in zoos are fed a prepared diet of horse meat and vitamins daily.
They may eat as much as 10 pounds of meat per day.
Tigers are ambush hunters, stalking
their prey, approaching as closely as possible, and then charging the
animal from behind. They usually bite the neck or throat of their prey.
The neck-bite, which severs the spinal cord, is typically used on small
or medium sized prey, while the throat bite, which causes suffocation,
is used on larger animals. After killing their prey, tigers drag the
animal to a safe place, consuming it over the course of several
days.
Mating and Cubs
 Female tigers reach maturity when they are about 3 years old,
males a year or so later. In temperate climates, a tigress comes into
estrus (heat) only seasonally; however in tropical climates, she may
come into estrus throughout the year (unless she is pregnant, or is
raising cubs). She signals her readiness with scent markings and
locating roars. The brief act of copulation occurs continually for a
five day period. Tigers are induced ovulators, and must be stimulated
through frequent copulation in order to become pregnant. To help
stimulate ovulation, the male tiger's penis has spines.
 Following
mating, the gestation period for tigers is approximately103 days. The
male tiger does not stay with the female after mating, and does not
participate in raising the cubs. The average litter size of tigers is 2
or 3 cubs (the largest is 5). One usually dies at birth. Tiger cubs are
born blind and weigh only about 2 to 3 pounds (1 kg), depending on the
subspecies.
They live on their mother's
milk for 6-8 weeks before the female begins taking them to kills to
feed. They begin making their own kills at about 18 months of age. Once
a tigress has mated and given birth to cubs, she will not come into
estrus again until her cubs are between one and a half and three years
of age, with enough skills to begin life on their own. Females tend to
stay closer to the mother's range than males.
Social Behavior
 Adult tigers are solitary animals that establish
their territories in areas with enough prey, cover and water to support
them. The difficulty of locating prey in tiger habitat makes it more
efficient for tigers to hunt alone. As a result, they do not tend to
form social groups like lions. A female tiger and her cubs are the
exception to this, and will form a family group for 2 to 3 years, until
the cubs are able to fend for themselves.
The territory of a tiger usually ranges in size from about 10 to 30
square miles (26-78 sq. km), although the territory of a Siberian tiger
may be as large as 120 square miles (310 sq. km). The size of a tiger's
territory depends on the amount of prey available. Tiger territories are
not exclusive. Several tigers may follow the same trails at different
times, and a male's territory usually overlaps those of several
females.
Both male and female tigers spray bushes and trees along their route
with a mixture of urine and scent gland secretions. This is a way of
declaring their territory. They also leave scratch marks on trees, and
urinate or leave droppings in prominent places.
Man-eating Tigers
 Although tiger attacks on humans are unusual, they do occur.
Because the human population in Asia is increasing, farmers and loggers
are beginning to use areas where tigers live. This causes increasing
conflicts between tigers and humans. It is thought that most tigers who
eat humans are sick or injured and unable to kill their usual prey. Once
they have acquired a taste for human beings, however, they will in all
likelihood continue to kill them.
While man-eating tigers are a rarity in most parts of Asia, they are
notorious in the Sundarbans, a 4,000 square mile (10,360 sq km) densely
forested river delta area in India and Bangladesh that is the home of
250 tigers. No one lives in the mangrove forests and swamps of the
Sundarbans; however people do enter to fish and gather wood and honey.
The Sundarban tigers seem to have targeted humans as prey, and human
casualties are reported every year.
Several different methods have been used to combat man-eating tigers
in the Sundarbans. One uses human dummies fitted with electric wires
from car batteries which administer a shock when touched by a tiger,
training tigers not to attack humans.
In another method, a mask of a human face is worn on the back of the
head, which deters attacks because tigers normally attack from behind.
While this method seemed to work for several years, it appears that some
Sundarban tigers may have discovered the trick.
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