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Amur Tigers
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 (04-21-2014, 11:08 PM)'GrizzlyClaws' Wrote:(04-21-2014, 11:00 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: I did'nt know that middle skull was a lion? Looks more tiger like to me, but I am no expert on skull identification, especially in a smaller picture. But either way, that top skull is massive. The one on the left with the mouth closed, that is the Tiger? The one next to it, with the jaws opened is the lion? Correct? 
Here is the comparative images of three large Amur tiger skulls. The two from the wild are the largest recorded; I did not include that one from Baikov as the picture of the skull was not from the side view, but it was just 6 mm shorter than the largest one. The captive skull is prety large, but other captive specimens probably develop even longer specimens.
 *This image is copyright of its original author Incredibly, the canines of the three specimens are practically of the same length (c.7.5 cm) although those from the wild specimens are more robust than that of the captive one.  (04-22-2014, 02:15 AM)'Pckts' Wrote:(04-21-2014, 11:08 PM)'GrizzlyClaws' Wrote:(04-21-2014, 11:00 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: I did'nt know that middle skull was a lion? Looks more tiger like to me, but I am no expert on skull identification, especially in a smaller picture. But either way, that top skull is massive. Yep, the one with the jaw opened is actually a large male lion, although his canines are smaller compared to that of the Amur tiger, but it is still quite impressive for a lion.
Indeed, quite impressive. But the Tigers canines are ablmost Saber-tooth like.
(04-22-2014, 04:50 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote:(04-22-2014, 04:10 AM)'Pckts' Wrote: Indeed, quite impressive. But the Tigers canines are ablmost Saber-tooth like.In fact, the canines of modern tigers are comparable to those of the Homotherium sp. Incredible, don't you think? [img]images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] The average Homotherium got 7 inches upper canines, and if we take a specimen like "Amur" who has 17 inches skull and 7 inches canines respectively. Then yes, the best tiger specimen got the canines as long as that of the average Homotherium. But keep in mind that the Panthera canines are conical and relatively heavier compared to that of sabertooth cats, so tiger's canines are arguably powerful and formidable weapon in the animal kingdom.
Captive Amur tigers:
Here is my table (No. 5 in correlation with those fo the wild specimens) about the captive male Amur tigers.  *This image is copyright of its original author The table No. 6 (about females) is still in preparation. Greetings.
The prey of the Amur tiger:
Let's know the prey of the Amur tiger: a. From Sunquist & Sunquist (2002):  *This image is copyright of its original author b. From the original source of Miquelle et al. (1996), this is the most complete:  *This image is copyright of its original author Now, how large are these animals? Well, here are the tables of sizes of all of them (those over 0.5 %, discarding the grouse). In the case of the herbivores, those marked with red are the ones from the Amur region: 1. Red deer - 54.3 %  *This image is copyright of its original author 2. Wild boar - 29.5 %  *This image is copyright of its original author 3. Roe deer - 6.3 %  *This image is copyright of its original author 4. Musk deer - 2.5 %  *This image is copyright of its original author 5. Bear (Brown and Black) - 2.2 %  *This image is copyright of its original author * Asiatic black bears:  *This image is copyright of its original author 6. Moose - 1.8 %  *This image is copyright of its original author 7. Ghoral - 0.9 %  *This image is copyright of its original author 8. Sika deer - 0.5 %  *This image is copyright of its original author The source of the herbivores is this book, from 2003:  *This image is copyright of its original author The source of the brown bears is from a Russian page, the author was Dr Kucherenko and the document was from 2003. Here is the link: http://safariclub.ru/trofy.php?action=view&id=24 The source of the Asiatic black bear is this:  *This image is copyright of its original author Some of those animals were also prey of the Caspian tiger, by the way. The only missed here is the saiga, which was, apparently, also important for the tigers in the Caucasus. 
Good information, Guate. Two remarks about the table on the weight of the Amur brown bear. One is the range for 10 adult males was 260-321 kg. An average of 264 kg. is a bit suspect. I assume a mistake was made somewhere.
Two is poster Alexious3 wrote the average weight of adult females is lower than the average weight mentioned in the table (12 females averaged 189 kg.). He said most adult females range between 130-150 kg. I didn't know what to make of his remark, but he apparently had good contacts in Russia. One thing to remember regarding bears is general is the variation in size in adults is significant. A Chinese poster on AVA posted reliable informaton on a very heavy female (I thought she was 360 kg.). This animal was killed and weighed in northern China. I also remember a female of about 100 kg. with two cubs (in Kaplanov's monograph). Both adults, but very different. According to Bart Schleier, who tracked tigers hunting bears in the snow, most bears hunted were killed by older male tigers. He wrote they had about 100 pounds on most of the bears taken. As adult male tigers average 430 pounds (Miquelle), most bears killed probably ranged between 300-350 pounds. It's very likely most, if not all, were adult females. The heaviest female killed was estimated at 150-200 kg. (330-440 pounds) by those who saw her. She put up a good fight (the tiger was wounded), but didn't survive the encounter. All bears hunted were killed.
Notice the prey size difference. All the prey hunted in the Sikhote range is pretty much smaller than any other locations posted. That might be a tell tell sign as to why siberians could be shrinking.
*This image is copyright of its original author If we use this info above and look at the time frames. What do you notice that was different in the 1933-48 compared to the 1994-1999? I see a couple of things. Looks like bears contributed more to a tigers diet as well as Moose and musk deer. It seems that tigers where forced to almost exclusively prey on elk and wild boar. With out the presence of bears and moose these tigers are starting to shrink in body mass. (04-24-2014, 03:33 PM)'peter' Wrote: Good information, Guate. Two remarks about the table on the weight of the Amur brown bear. One is the range for 10 adult males was 260-321 kg. An average of 264 kg. is a bit suspect. I assume a mistake was made somewhere.The average of 264 kg seems reliable, the problem is that most of the bears weighed around this figure and those of over 300 kg were few, at least in the sample. About the females, probably those from Kucherenko were better feed or just fat at that moment. These are plausible explanations. I think that the Chinese poster was KTKC, but I don't remember any female bear of 360 kg, maybe it was 360 lb? About the bear predation, here is a translation from the monograph of 2005:  *This image is copyright of its original author It seems that the Siberian Tiger Project recorded only female bears to be hunted. This suport my theory that males of each side avoid each other while females are the target, again for both sides. However, the bears search to steal the prey, while the tiger search them like a prey. It is interesting that you say that all bears hunted were killed. This would mean a 100% of success in bear hunting!
The heavist wild boar in the table Guate posted was 285 kg. (Voronesh Oblast). Must have been an immense animal. Here's a similar-sized wild boar shot somewhere in Turkey (first posted by Warsaw):
 *This image is copyright of its original author
New record for the Amur tiger:
Thanks to TheLioness, this new record of 212 kg is reported by The Amur Tiger Programme:  *This image is copyright of its original author This male of about seven years know as Luk is now the heaviest male on record in the Amur region. When he was less than 3 years, he weighed 150 kg. Also, she show me this page: http://www.tendua.org/2,002/reports,008/...r,087.html Here are the measurements of the previous heaviest Amur tiger on record (207 kg), which aparently, was still not fully grow, maybe just above de 3-4 years, check the image:  *This image is copyright of its original author Check these canines, they are still white and measured 5.6 cm:  *This image is copyright of its original author Here we can see that he has no stomach content:  *This image is copyright of its original author Finally, the male been weighed:  *This image is copyright of its original author Interesting, the tigers in this region, at the south of Prymore, are slightly heavier than those of Sikhote-Alin area. Besides, the morphology of the young Banzai, at the moment of its capture, resemble more those of the Bengal tigers than those of the Amur. Now, 3 years latter, he is probably much larger and heavier, maybe as much as Luk. Check his image at 2013:  *This image is copyright of its original author Here is Luk, at 2013, probably also slightly over 212 kg:  *This image is copyright of its original author New table about male tigers will be made, the results were posted soon. [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img] (04-25-2014, 08:56 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote: New record for the Amur tiger: You can also put the data of Luk's canine into the canine table sheet. |
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