Here's a few weights and measurements of Vancouver Island wolves:





 

 

This topic provides the first verified measurements of a Liger, the largest on record according with Guinness (2014). Also, the topic can be used to provide a database about ligers and other cat hybrids.
 

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This is the data according with the Guinness book of 2014:







 
Here are more images of “Hercules”:







For comparison, here is the data of “Jaipur” the Amur tiger:




I scaled Joan smaller (in the body and in the head) than Moksha, but even then, the tiger Jaipur looks slightly larger than Hercules. You can make our own comparisons and you will see it. Besides, remember that some time before, Jaipur reached the huge weight of 465 kg (1,025 lb)!!!

It seems that these two cats are indeed the largest captive cats ever recorded. However, normally ligers are heavier than most captive tigers and lions.

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As we can see, the often exaggerated body size of the Ligers (up to 360 cm in total length) is probably just that, an exaggeration. The largest Liger ever measured and verified by Guinness was no larger than the largest captive tiger ever recorded (332 cm (tiger) against 333 cm (liger), measured in straight line).
 
It is true that the ligers are in fact larger than the largest wild tigers and lions, however captive specimens can and do match they sizes, although ligers reach more often the huge weights of up to 400 kg and are taller at the shoulders.
 
With a total length of 333 cm and a shoulder height of 125 cm, ligers are truly giants and only the largest wild tigers ever recorded reached those sizes (330 cm in total length (Mazák, 1981) and 114 cm in shoulder height (Brander, 1923)).
 
We can conclude that ligers are larger than wild lions and tigers, that captive lions and tigers can and do match they body size in extreme cases, but ligers are heavier in relation with its size, often weight up 350-400 kg, however, the largest captive tiger (Jaipur, 423 kg in 1986) was about the same weight than the largest captive liger (418.2 kg in 2013).
 
Ps.: The lions that apparently measured up to 333 cm quoted by Nowell & Jackson (1996) and Guggisberg (1975) are fake and/or incorrect, and now I have the evidence to prove it.
 

 

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Other "giant" specimens:
1. Hagenbeck liger:
The oldest and biggest of his animals was a hybrid born on the 11th May, 1897. This fine beast, now more than five years old, equals and even excels in his proportions a well-grown lion, measuring as he does from nose tip to tail 10 ft 2 inches (310 cm) in length, and standing only three inches less than 4 ft (114 cm) at the shoulder. A good big lion will weigh about 400 lbs - Mr Selous gives the length of a lion shot by himself as 9 ft 11 inches, its height as 3 ft 8 inches, and its weight as 410 lbs - and it is probably that in very exceptional cases lions may attain 450 and even 500 lbs. But the hybrid in question, weighing as it does no less than 467 lbs (212 kg), is certainly the superior of most well-grown lions, whether wild-bred or born in a menagerie.


Source: ANIMAL LIFE AND THE WORLD OF NATURE, "LION-TIGER HYBRIDS" (June 1902-1903) by A H Bryden.
Link: http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-history.htm
 
2. Cubanacan from Guinness:
The Calcuta Zoo first tigon was Rudhrani, born in 1971, was mated to an Asiatic lion called Debabrata and produced 7 li-tigons in her lifetime. Some of these reached impressive sizes - a li-tigon named Cubanacan (died April 12th, 1991) was believed to weigh at least 800lb/363 kg, stood 52 inches/1.32m at the shoulder and 11.5ft/3.5 m total length (1994: GBWR "largest litigon").


Source: Guinness Book of World Records, 1994_Largest Li-tigon.
Link: http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hyb-tigon.htm
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litigon
 
3. Unreliable specimens, no sources:
In 1935, four ligers from two litters were reared in the Zoological Gardens of Bloemfontein, South Africa. Three of them, a male and two females, were still living in 1953. The male weighed 340 kg (750 lb) and stood a foot and a half (45 cm) taller than a full grown male lion at the shoulder.
 
Valley of the Kings animal sanctuary in Wisconsin had a male liger named Nook who weighed around 550 kg (1,213 lb),[sup][citation needed[/sup]] and died in 2007, at 21 years old.[sup][citation needed][/sup] Hobbs, a male liger at the Sierra Safari Zoo in Reno, Nevada, lived to almost 15 years of age before succumbing to liver failure and weighed in at 410 kilograms (900 lb).[sup][citation needed][/sup]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger
 

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Commentary:
These above records provide an idea of the real size of these giants. There are other sources that quote a height of 366 cm standing in the hind legs, but this is an unreliable form to measure a cat, and there are no records of wild-captive tiger-lions for comparison.
 
The first two records were actually measured but they weights were just estimated. The first record show a specimen no larger than a wild Amur-Bengal tiger, however at 1897, a cat of that size in captivity was practically a miracle, as all the cats suffered of bad care in those Menageries. The second case is a double hybrid and presents the largest body size of ANY great cat in modern history. With a total length of 350 cm (straight line) and a shoulder height of 132 cm, this cat was of the same size than the largest Ngandong tiger (Panthera tigris soloensis) and Panthera atrox on record!!! Look his image and you will know how large these two Pleistocene cats were.
 
The third record shows three specimens that are presented in Wikipedia with NO source. The first (340 kg) and the third (410 kg) specimens presents plausible weights and don’t surpass the actual record weight of Hercules (418.2 kg). At least, in the case of the 340 kg specimen, I found confirmation of the figure, so is reliable, check it out:


 
Finally, the liger of AROUND 550 kg is clearly an estimation and an exaggeration. Sadly, webpages like “Ligerworld.com” not only promote the breeding of these hybrids but also propagate the myth of the existence of huge unreliable sizes, check this out:
 
a. Their weight can easily surpass 1000 pounds. Ligers can gain a length of 12 to 14 feet which makes this animal a huge beast.
Question: where is the confirmation or the specimens measured??? Were they sources are for this claim???
 
b. A liger in the 19th century was believed to be more than 1700 pounds. But this statement cannot be confirmed. However, a liger in Wisconsin had a weight of 1600 pounds. This weight is confirmed and ligerworld.com has confirmed it from authenticated sources as well.
Question: Did the keepers actually weigh this liger or it was just estimation? Why Guinness doesn’t recognize this figure??? Confirmed by a page that creat a myth about healthy ligers that that state that ligers are “ambassadors” of conservation, well, that is the WORST source that we can found.
 
c. One report suggests a liger of 1200 pounds, while another report suggests that in Wisconsin, there was a liger which weighed more than 1600 pounds.
Question: Where are those reports??? A liger of 725.7 kg??? Only in them wild and sick dreams. Why no one, even Guinness, don’t knew about this cat??? Why only now than that liger is dead, they present this weight that can’t be confirmed anymore???
 
Source: http://www.ligerworld.com/size-of-the-ligers.html
             http://www.ligerworld.com/biggest-liger-...orded.html
 
Finally, Ligerworld.org present a pretty list of liger weights, however they forget to say that ALL of them are just estimations (most of them very gross), sadly some people, even a few dear cat-fans in the AVA forum choose to believe this silly estimations that are not based in any facts.
 
The famous liger Hobbs was estimated at about 900 lb (408 kg), and some people even dare to estimate him at 1000 lb (453.6 kg) but he seems no near as large and heavy as Hercules (418.2 kg).
 
Check him:




 
With a tigress, he doesn’t look excessively large:


 
Check this page about Hobbs: http://www.lionlamb.us/hobbs.html
 
Conclusion:
It is obvious that this pages like Ligerworld.com and some others fan-pages contribute to hence the myth of huge cats over 500 kg in captivity, besides, they promote the breeding of ligers like if they had some conservation value, with excuses like that they are “ambassadors” of the conservation or that they attract people that “donate” money for the “conservation” of tigers and lion in the wild.
 
The evidence suggests that the male liger measure between 300-333 cm in total length in straight line and can reach a height of up to 130 cm. The weight is issue is a difficult business, but at this time, the heaviest Liger actually weighed in all history reached about 420 kg.

All those claims of heavier and longer ligers most be treated like gross exaggerations, like the existences of white sharks of over 10 m in length or modern eagles of 5 m in wingspan. Skulls
Sadly, I found only three skulls in the web, however, I think that there is something weird here, check this:
 
1. Length 17", width 11" – 432 cm by 279 cm.
[img]http://schreckensart.homestead.com/files/liger_skull.jpg" class="lozad max-img-size" alt="" title="">





Source: http://schreckensart.homestead.com/skullscats.html
 
2. Length 16 5/8" long by 10 7/8" wide – 422 cm by 276 cm.


Source: http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/cats.html
 
3. Approx. skull length 17" – about 43 cm.




Source: http://schreckensart.homestead.com/NHbigcats.html
 
I think that these three skulls are the same model, after all the three specimens almost match with them sizes. The problem is the use of inches, which like in “Bone Clones”, are only APPROXIMATED sizes, not the actual size which is better measured in millimeters or centimeters.
 
Even taking the largest size, the top figure of 432 cm is just like the largest lion skull, so it is not enormously large. The figure is important and suggests, again, that the “large” size of the liger is more on the body weight than in the body size itself. Sadly, as we don’t know the actual size of the previous owner, we can’t compare it with other lion-tiger specimens.
 

 

Map of Asiatic lion's last recorded presence in Indian subcontinent: link

Asiatic lion historic range.


https://www.researchgate.net/publication...n_Genomics



https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijeb/20...1892/fig1/

1 - SHARKS

This shark, an adult male, featured in a recent documentary on white sharks which was broadcasted on the National Geographic Channel (could have been Discovery). The sharks were caught with a line in a small boat (dinghy), exhausted (by using buoys), 'guided' towards a research ship and, with an elevator, lifted out of the water. Before they were released, a transmitter was put in the dorsal fin (see photograph). The transmitter transferred a signal every time the dorsal fin broke the surface. In this way, they were able to follow the shark for a considerable amount of time. 

I read an article recently. Most white sharks west of California move between California and Hawai, so it seems. It could be they meet there to mate, but they were not sure.

This is the shark on the elevator just before he was released. At 17 feet and 9 inches, he was the longest they measured:





 

Male brown bear and wolf. They had been playing. Wild animals (L. Rautiainen):




 

I'm not talking about extinction that occurred during the ordovician & devonian periods but reltively in recent times. I think European colonialism & expansionism is the major factor here.

Lack of Hindu (Indian) concepts like Advaita (nonduality- fundamental intrinsic oneness) & Jivadaya (care for all living creatures) in the Western thought explains why they (westerners) love trophy & canned hunting. Hunting by Indian Maharajahs is a British/Moghul influence.

you can read more about animal extinction here:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/extinct-a...years.html

canned hunting:
http://www.occupyforanimals.org/canned-h...frica.html
 

 

This topic was made with the purpose to finally state with of these two tigers is/was the largest, using the available data and the reliable records. Also, it will clarify what characteristics make the Amur and the Bengal tiger an unique animal and what adaptations were made in order to create a completely adapted form. Enjoy the reading and help with information.
 
Which is the largest of the tigers? The better form to understand this question is to state the three points of view: 1-the skull size, 2-the body size and 3-the body weight.
 

 

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1. Skull size:
Very few people have investigated the skull of the Amur tiger, and the only large database has been provided by Dr Vratislav Mazák. Although he is the only one that presents a large more or less representative sample, he made the mistake of including captive specimens, so his figures, although reliable, have this little problem; I don’t know if his sample of Bengal tigers suffer of this situation, however what it is sure is that the largest skulls recorded by him came from wild specimens. According with the investigation of Dr Vratislav Mazák, the Amur tiger is the largest of the tigers and his measurements on 227 skulls shows that the Amur tigers have the largest overall skulls. The average figures (greatest skull length) that he published in his book “Der Tiger” of 1983, were of 367.1 mm (n=8; range: 341-383 mm) for Amur males and 353.4 mm (n=36; range: 329-378 mm) for Bengal males. However, at least for the Bengal tigers, there are other scientists that have calculated other average figures.
 
I manage to collect 63 Bengal tiger skulls measurements from reliable sources, and 20 Amur tiger skulls (including those from Mazák, in the last case). The problem with the Bengal sample is that old records mostly present only greatest length and zigomatic wide, while only the pure scientific sources presents other important measurements like the condylobasal length. This seems not the case with the Amur tiger skulls. For the female side, I collected 12 Bengal females and 15 Amur ones.
 
With the Bengal tigers, there are three sources for the records:
1. The scientific sources: These are the measurements taken by scientists and naturalists from wild specimens, this are automatically accepted. Among this sample I can quote Pocock and Sterndale, among others.
2. The first hand sources: These measurements came from well know hunters and from first hand sources. As they were not taken by scientists, its accuracy is open to question by some people, but the reputation of the collectors make them highly reliable. At this field I included Hewett, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar and Burton, among others.
3. The second hand sources: These figures are reliable, but they are open to question as they have been not verified by scientists. The records of Rowland Ward are included here.
 
For comparison purposes, I will use only the scientific sources for comparison with those of the Amur tiger, because they have the three principal measurements, but check all the results:



The range of averages change between 352 to 374 mm, but it must be taken in count that just in the three last samples, we can be sure that the specimens used were fully wild. Including the average of 351 +/- 2.5 mm (n=37) from Yamaguchi et al. (2009), the overall average will be of 359.2 mm (n=134). This figure will be smaller than that of the Amur tiger, however we don’t know where Yamaguchi get his measurements (it is possible that he used the same specimens from European museums like Mazák), so using only wild specimens we get an average of 363.9 mm (n=61), which is about the same than the average for the Amur tigers.
 
These are the figures for the females, only for the scientific sources. I did not found other sources. Check the figure:
* Bengal tiger:             GSL                            CBL                        ZW
Females:                    295.6 mm (10)           266.4 mm (12)           196.2 mm (10)
                                271 – 312 mm            250 – 285 mm            185 – 203 mm
 
For comparison purposes, I am going to use an average mix of Mazák and the scientific sources, as these are the only ones that had poses the full set of measurements for comparison. The scientific sources for the Bengal are: Sterndale (1884), McDougal (1977), Pocock (1929-1939), Feiler & Stefen (2009) and Christiansen & Harris (2012).
 
The raw averages presents interesting figures check this out:


 
Extreme records support the Bengal for the title, as the largest skull for the Amur males was a Manchurian specimen of 406 cm (Kitchener, 1996), while the largest Bengal skull measured 412.8 cm (Hewett, 1938). However, on average, it seems that Amur tigers have the largest measurements and based on this, it is easy to see why Mazák strongly stated that the Amur tiger is the largest subspecies of tiger. However, using all the data for the Bengal tigers, the difference between these and those from Russia is of no more than 8 millimeters.
 
These results summarize all the data on skulls that I have found in literature. Peter will present more measurements in the future, so my results presented here must be taken as preliminary until more data could be shown.
 
As far I know, there is no data about bone sizes of “pure breed” Bengal tigers, only about the Amur ones. Christiansen & Harris (2005) published the measurements on two “Bengal” specimens, but judging by the body size and weight, or they were very young specimens (specially the male, 145 kg) or they were just hybrids. However, the bones of the Amur tigers presented by them, rank among the largest in record and compete in size with the largest felids in fossil records (372.5 mm and 429.5 mm for the largest humerus and femur respectively).
 
Finally, in the canines department, Mazák (1981) report a maximum canine length of 74.5 mm, although he quotes Dr Gewalt for a canine of 90 mm in a captive specimen. Dr Christiansen report a maximum canine length of 59.4 mm for a skull with a CBL of 337.8 mm (CN6049), which suggest a larger canine for the specimen CN5698 which have a CBL of 350.9 mm. However, he quotes a canine length of 71.4 mm for a Bengal specimen (CN4552), which is practically of the same length than the largest canine reported by Mazák.
 
Dr Sunquist captured a huge male known as Sauraha (T-105), which have a canine length of 65 mm from the tip to the gum line. In the skull, this canine probably measured up to 70 mm. However, I recently bought the book “Tiger: the ultimate guide” of Valmik Thapar (2004), and in an article “Filming Tigers” from Mike Birkhead, he states that the large male known as “Madla” that was estimated at 250 kg with a neck of 90 cm, had upper canines that were about 75 mm! (Page 213). This is a new record among Bengal tigers and taking in count that this was measured to the gum line, this means a length of no less than 80 mm in the skull, surpassing any wild Amur tiger canine recorded.
 
In conclusion, the skull size suggest that the Amur tigers are slightly larger than those from Bengal, however the differences are between 20 to 8 millimeters, which is hardly significant for animals that are known to reach over 2 meters long and weighs over 250 kg. So, in a raw manner, we can conclude that Amur tigers do have larger skulls than the Bengal ones, but the extreme records suggest parity in sizes, in both skull and canine size.
 
In my next post, the point No. 2 – The body size.
 
Greetings.

 

Actually Im facing a problem here, whenever I do several posts some of the posts are joining together to form one single post.
I dont no how to rectify this problem and its very annoying.
Can someone help me out here ?

Today I just found two nice new sites about wildlife and big cats. So I thought it could be beneficial for everyone to collect such sites, blogs etc. here in a special thread.

This site might be known to some of you since it looks like a big company is behind it.
http://www.earthtouchnews.com/

A nice blog with pictures, videos, links and news about big cats.
https://greatcatsoftheworld.wordpress.com/

@ moderators: If this doesn´t fit into this sub category feel free to move it.