behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?

[GuateGojira]

(11-04-2015, 11:29 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: In HKK reserve in Thailand ( Huai Kha Khaeng ) Smicharoen ( I hope I did not murder his name) reported tiger predation on adult gaur,water buffalo, and banteng in the park.  The only place where all exist...and this is not the massive Bengal tiger this is your 110-170 kg indochinese tiger ( granted bovids there are smaller there than in India but still remarkable), still,in the same study sambar are strongly selected and muntjac despite it being avoided was taken frequently.
Tigers will obviously target calves and subadults and will kill them more than their percentage of gaur population, and will obviously kill more of the solitary old bulls than the females who live in the breeding herds despite their smaller size, this pattern is similar to lion predation on Cape buffalo.

In fact, those weights of 110 and 170 kg came from captive and semi-captive tigers in Thailand. I still remember a wild male of 200 kg and a wild female of 120 kg radiocollared in the area, sadly the webpage no longer exist and in those days (about 2005), I did not copy-paste the data in my computer, so the record only exist in my memory.

In the old days, there are at least two reliable records of a male of 182 kg (Mazák, 2004) and another exceptional of 259 kg (Bazé, 1957). With that large prey base it is logical to conclude that in the old days, some Indochinese tigers do reached the same size than those of India.

Sadly, according with Hunter (2015), it seems that tigers are practically (and functionally) extinct from all Indochina, except in Thailand and Malaysia. Check this sad statement:

*This image is copyright of its original author

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