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behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?
behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?
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behind the big cat's and bear's, who is the top predator?
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 (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. 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
(11-04-2015, 11:50 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Guate do you have a link for the detailed Karanth and Sunquist study? I am interested in comparing scats data and kill data in tiger predation on gaur, as you know scat analysis overestimates small prey and kills analysis overestimates large prey, and most of what is known comes from scat analysis since observing tiger kills is difficult in most of their habitat. You ask, you have.  Check attached image, there is the full document of Karanth and Sunquist (1995). By the way, what I would want is the thesis of Dr Karanth of 1993. I have not found it in the web yet.  (11-04-2015, 11:57 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:(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. No those were three radio collard wild males 110,150, 170 kg by J.D. Smith et al., definitely indochinese tigers reached over 200 kg when sambar,Eld deer, and large bovids were common, fifty years of war ravaged the region and it's wild life and despite the establishment of many protected areas , most are " Muntjac-only" scenario, leading to less and less tiger reproduction , the emergence of the more adaptable smaller tigers and either a Sundarban scenario or extinction which I fear will be the case unless we can quickly restock the forests of indochina
And thank you guate and all to enriching the debate , the more we know about animals the more we become aware of we do not know.
(11-05-2015, 12:23 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote: No those were three radio collard wild males 110,150, 170 kg by J.D. Smith et al., definitely indochinese tigers reached over 200 kg when sambar,Eld deer, and large bovids were common, fifty years of war ravaged the region and it's wild life and despite the establishment of many protected areas , most are " Muntjac-only" scenario, leading to less and less tiger reproduction , the emergence of the more adaptable smaller tigers and either a Sundarban scenario or extinction which I fear will be the case unless we can quickly restock the forests of indochina In fact, my friend, those four tigers (three males and one fmeale) are captive. Here is the paper: http://www.claws.umn.edu/sites/claws.umn...format.pdf The workshop was held at Khao Pratubchang Wildlife Breeding Center in Ratchaburi, Thailand. Three individuals were darted in small enclosures using compressed air drug delivery systems. A fourth tiger, in a large outdoor enclosure, was captured in a leg snare that was set up by participants. The male of 200 kg and the female of 120 kg were in fact wild ones, but like I told you, I lost the data and I don't know how to communicate with any of the people that worked in that project. (11-05-2015, 12:42 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:I see, these were in fact captive animals, thank you for the clarification, the main issue remains that they are smaller than their Bengal cousins and still are capable hunters of adult bovids .(11-05-2015, 12:23 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote: No those were three radio collard wild males 110,150, 170 kg by J.D. Smith et al., definitely indochinese tigers reached over 200 kg when sambar,Eld deer, and large bovids were common, fifty years of war ravaged the region and it's wild life and despite the establishment of many protected areas , most are " Muntjac-only" scenario, leading to less and less tiger reproduction , the emergence of the more adaptable smaller tigers and either a Sundarban scenario or extinction which I fear will be the case unless we can quickly restock the forests of indochina Rabinowitz states that he believes a good size male from Thailand would be in the range of 180Kg, but all we have are estimates or in this case captive animals. Thai biologists have a good amount of research on his ecotype of tigers but we have limited access to their work. The grim fact remains that we thought that P.t.corbetti numbered 4000 a decade ago, now we know it is probably less than 400  Quote:the main issue remains that they are smaller than their Bengal cousins and still are capable hunters of adult bovids .All tigers have oversized fangs, since I have been observed their fangs for quite a while. Although most of the fangs in my thread belong to the captive animals, but the captive ones have less worn than their wild counterparts, thus the fangs are neat and in better condition even when it was getting aged. Their fangs are designed to pierce through the tough skin of the large animals, that absolutely enables them to go after the big preys one on one, even the small subspecies can easily possess the lion-sized fangs. The lion fangs are also very large and powerful. However, the tiger fangs are just ridiculously large and overpowered. 
Leopards does also have very long fangs while lions and jaguars have shorter. Wonder why really? Have made my own theories over the years, but not sure.
lions and tigers both animals are hunting large prey (zebra, sambar, wildebeest and bovine species), but still the tiger has such long fangs, feel like amur tigers have the longest. Big question! Can be because the lions have a longer skull, and looks like the lions bite eachother more often in conflicts between other lions, and also in hunting! while leopards usually kills prey smaller than themselves, jaguars have a very special way of killing that might be the reason behind ther shorter fangs 
I say African Wild dogs as hunters, I heard they have an average kill rate of 80% and in the serengeti they have a 90% kill rate! There are obvious flaws in the Wild dog plan as they can easily be out muscled by bigger predators, but as I'm sure you've seen in vids they can as a pack devour an impala in a less than a minute sometimes, so that makes up for it.
Here is some data on them and their diets. Diet: Quote:Wild dogs mostly hunt medium-sized antelope, with the preferred species varying according to the most abundant prey species in the area. The proportions of prey taken by wild dogs in various study sites across Africa include (Woodroffe et al. 1997): http://www.animalinfo.org/species/carnivor/lycapict.htm Fast enough as creatures and strong enough as a unit to take down Africa's fast and furious ranging from gazelle to wildebeest.
The clouded leopards have the longest fangs by proportion, but they are also very thin and lightly built.
Unlike the jaguars, the lions don't have proportionally short fangs, they also used it to pierce against the big preys. The lions with longer fangs also require less effort to kill the big preys. For example, Cecil has applied an instant killing bite against the elephant calf, while his blood brother Jericho was merely assisting him to pin the calf on the ground. The lion with longer fangs would also use the same tactic as tiger, just to finish off the prey as quick as possible, not spending too much time to chew off the back and spine. (11-05-2015, 12:13 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(11-04-2015, 11:50 PM)Dr Panthera Wrote: Guate do you have a link for the detailed Karanth and Sunquist study? I am interested in comparing scats data and kill data in tiger predation on gaur, as you know scat analysis overestimates small prey and kills analysis overestimates large prey, and most of what is known comes from scat analysis since observing tiger kills is difficult in most of their habitat. Thanks again I could not find this detailed study for a while, I read it some years ago in the late 90's and I particularly like it because it highlights the differences in describing the feeding ecology from scats analysis versus kill records, let s consider the results of this study : 1- chital kills were 10.4% of observed kills yet constituted 31.2% in scat analysis ( a fairly small prey) 2-Sambar kills were 28.6% and a comparable 24.9% in scat analysis 3- Gaur were 44.8% of kills yet only 17.4% in scat analysis This highlights the importance of sambar as a consistent, predictable, large prey for tigers regardless of the potential bias of the study methods, the study also shows the importance of gaur to nagarahole tigers as a major prey item unlike areas where encounters between tigers and gaur are less likely and more costly in energy,also important is the abundant chital like everywhere else 
The scat analysis doesn't determine if the prey was killed or scavenged so its a bit less complete IMO.
I look at Sambar for Tigers the way Wildabeest and Zebra are important for lions. I think both are extremely dependent on those particular animals. (11-05-2015, 04:34 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: The clouded leopards have the longest fangs by proportion, but they are also very thin and lightly built. yeah it's true, but to strangle a cape buffalo bull seems impossible without wearing the animal out by chewing on the spine and back. and also often the lions needs to injure the buffalo because the heard will come back to defend the attacked buffalo. and the hunt for buffalo can take hour's so the lions will often just injure the animal so badly it can't keep up and at the end falls victim for the hungry cats. look at this bull in this video that I saw yesterday, this is gotta be the most impressive neck I have ever seen on a wild bovine I'm shocked! the massive bull appears at 00:30
You're not putting that big boy in throat hold, thats a hamstring attack for sure.
(11-05-2015, 01:01 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote:(11-05-2015, 12:42 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:I see, these were in fact captive animals, thank you for the clarification, the main issue remains that they are smaller than their Bengal cousins and still are capable hunters of adult bovids .(11-05-2015, 12:23 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote: No those were three radio collard wild males 110,150, 170 kg by J.D. Smith et al., definitely indochinese tigers reached over 200 kg when sambar,Eld deer, and large bovids were common, fifty years of war ravaged the region and it's wild life and despite the establishment of many protected areas , most are " Muntjac-only" scenario, leading to less and less tiger reproduction , the emergence of the more adaptable smaller tigers and either a Sundarban scenario or extinction which I fear will be the case unless we can quickly restock the forests of indochina The funny thing too is captive animals are usually in a better condition and can grow larger than wild ones ( so 170 kg is likely to be a big male nowadays) yet less than a century ago Baze stated that he saw a tiger pulling a gaur carcass that 13 men could not move!!! Indochinese gaur are slightly smaller than Indian ones so anything from 400 to 800 kg and likely to be towards the upper range since 13 men could not move it...if a tiger easily dragged that he is either a large one, or one mighty 150 kg cat ? |
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