Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur

[Pckts]

Correct @GuateGojira
I posted it in the bigcat videos thread. It was a little disheartening as the only response was "220kg" I had a follow up on scale capacity, measurements, etc. But have received no response. @Roflcopters gave me a name and email of another researcher on site but I haven't received anything back from him yet.


Here is what I wrote and his response intially

"He wrote:

From Bilal Habib [email protected]

"220 kg"

On 10/30/2015 9:38 PM, XXXXX XXXXXX wrote:

Good after Dr, I saw that you recently radio collared Jai from Umred and I was curious if you were able to weigh him?
If so I was wondering what his weight was and if you took any other measurements, like head and body, total length, chest, neck, forelimbs etc?

Thank you so much for your time, Jai is one of my favorite tigers at the moment, I'm always amazed by his sheer size when I see images or videos of him, I am very interested to see what his actual weight is?
Thanks again
" Reply

[Pckts]

(11-04-2015, 11:27 PM)tigerluver Wrote: All I've to add is that hunter weights should not be discarded. @peter explained it much more eloquently, but doing so would be a huge loss of data. More weights are not going to be published anytime soon, so I hear the issue of limited sample size often. It is a problem, but hunter records alleviate it a bit.

Why not put a small indicator next to hunters weights or a column for them?
It would definitely be nice to have them all in one place so we can really use a large sample size. I think the same should be done for lions as well.
Thanks for your hard work. Reply

[GuateGojira]

In fact, that is what I have done in my tables, separate the old and the new weights for comparison.

Check the image of the Bengal and Amur tigers, there is the separation too. Reply

[Pckts]

(11-05-2015, 12:16 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: In fact, that is what I have done in my tables, separate the old and the new weights for comparison.

Check the image of the Bengal and Amur tigers, there is the separation too.

This one?

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply

[Pckts]

Edit:
NVM I found it

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply

[GuateGojira]

In fact, I was talking about this one:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The weights are separated by ranges, before and after scientific studies.

The first image that you posted mixed old with new records, for space issues. The second image just compared the maximum sizes record in hunting and scientific records. Reply

[BoldChamp]

(05-01-2015, 12:21 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: As far as I know captive amur tigers are around 215 kg, so they are basically of the same weight as wild bengal tigers. We know that captive tigers are usually smaller than wild ones, so wild amur tigers should be even heavier. On the other hand current wild amurs are around 190 kg, but this is probably due to insufficient prey base. I think that in good conditions wild amurs would be of the same weight as wild bengals or perhaps somewhat heavier. They would be taller and longer, but bengals would be more muscular.

Almost all sources say that amur tigers are the largest felids today. The realitiy is more complicated as bengals are heavier, but that statement is not essentially wrong.

Actually, the current food intake of Amurs is about 6-8 kg per day, more than enough food. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(11-05-2015, 01:26 PM)BoldChamp Wrote:

(05-01-2015, 12:21 AM)Amnon242 Wrote: As far as I know captive amur tigers are around 215 kg, so they are basically of the same weight as wild bengal tigers. We know that captive tigers are usually smaller than wild ones, so wild amur tigers should be even heavier. On the other hand current wild amurs are around 190 kg, but this is probably due to insufficient prey base. I think that in good conditions wild amurs would be of the same weight as wild bengals or perhaps somewhat heavier. They would be taller and longer, but bengals would be more muscular.

Almost all sources say that amur tigers are the largest felids today. The realitiy is more complicated as bengals are heavier, but that statement is not essentially wrong.

Actually, the current food intake of Amurs is about 6-8 kg per day, more than enough food.

That is an estimation, not the actual food intake. Dr Miller estimated that quantity but in any case is a real and measured number in the wild. Keep an eye on that. Reply

[Siegfried]

I thought this site tries to not have these "vs" threads. Reply

[sanjay]

@Siegfried , You are correct 
We are against vs debate which are hypothetical for example Lion vs tiger fight. or any other animal fights or some comparison which are just a child brain imagination
Lion will kill tiger in single paw, Tiger will defeat a lion without any problem and blah blah....

Look at the full name of thread again, its only for scientific point of view.
We want here a serious, mature and controlled discussion. Reply

[Dr Panthera]

(11-04-2015, 10:26 PM)Pckts Wrote: Technically the largest were 272kg(bottomed out scale) and others bottomed out at 227kg, so true sizes are more than listed. (excluding adjustments)
I don't believe the idea that these cats represent "3%" of the total species available data, unless of course you are including sub adults, females and cubs as well as different sub species.

Out of the males that were adults and measured, ones ranging over the 220kg mark are quite abundant. Much more than 3%, so if we were using the 220kg mark as a gauge for "Large" of course, just figured it seemed like a good number to consider large, since its over the average mark we have available. 
We can only use the sample size available, if you were to use semi reliable hunting records, these marks are actually fairly similar.
We can now add 4 more males to the sample size of 240kg+, 220kg, 185kg, 220kg if we want to.

In every scientific detailed study on the demographics of either tigers or lions the prime male were not more than 3% of the total population ...so yes that includes females that usually outnumber males two to one and at least subadults over two years of age ( some studies include Cubs,  others omit them due to high mortality)... My point is the largest tigers or lions or any animal are a small percentage and statistically irrelevant , I would love to see very large samples over one hundred each and calculate a range where 80% of the individuals of each the species/ subspecies and that would be reflective of the true picture.
So even fifty tigers out of five thousands is not what we want to focus on, all five thousands matter.
Mazak built an " illusion" that Amur Tigers were significantly larger than their Bengal brothers or lion cousins based on hunting records, captive animals, and small samples....and what do we have now ? Not a single Amur tiger measured by scientists was over 212 kg... A mark that easily exceeded by many Bengal tigers and some lions, does this suggest that Amur are smaller than lions or than Bengal tigers? Not really there are Sundarban males of less than 100 kg and the samples are small from all over the subcontinent to make a decisive.
The absolute fact remains that a 180-200 kg tiger or lion is a formidable animal, capable of holding a territory, fathering cubs, dominating other species and fighting off nomads for a while....if extra strength and size is there bonus, if more males are with him in a lion coalition even better. Reply

[Dr Panthera]

(11-04-2015, 09:53 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: @Dr Panthera, check this topic: http://wildfact.com/forum/topic-who-is-t...the-tigers

That is the original topic about the comparison, there is all the available data. My conclusion was that they are of the same size overall, with slight differences probably caused by sample size.

Greetings.

I agree comparable size usually...more variation in Bengal tigers given the varied conditions in their range from the prey poor sundarbans to the prey rich Assam and so on. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(11-06-2015, 05:30 AM)tigerluver Wrote: @Dr Panthera
Respectful rebuttals to your points.

1- The method problem department really stops at length. There's only one way to weigh something.

2- Modern peer-review process doesn't care about the data points either. It's the entire scope of the work reviewed, not whether you weighed your cat perfectly. 

2 and 3- @peter also has thoroughly touched on how hunters had a lot to lose if they were caught exaggerating records. In such a competitive sport, the big ones would be questioned by your competitors. Also note that hunting record tigers are on average lighter than our modern records. So I wouldn't think much tampering had been done.

The only hunting record regarding tigers that is questionable is the 384 kg specimen. A 320 kg tiger of Smythies is very possible, albeit the very high end. Keep in mind that in Smythies' tiger's region, in scientific record, we have 2 +/- 270 kg tigers, if what I learned about Nuna and Island Bhale is true, make that 4. Same for lions, we have a few cases of ~250 kg cats, 300 kg would eventually be reached by the freakishly large one.

3- Tigers and lions (cave lions) well of 400 kg existed and were morphologically viable. If you mean the prey base wouldn't be enough, for one specimen it would be, but not for a whole population. Yes, for a modern tiger 380 kg is insane, but once every thousands of generations, it isn't out of the question, like a 8 foot human isn't out of the question.

The captive giant tiger does exist, but it is like the giant human specimen such as Angus MacAskill, it is very rare to find one specimen over many generations.

Here is a very large robust captive Amur fang that measures 6 1/2" in the straight line.

*This image is copyright of its original author

In comparison, here is a 5 1/2" captive Bengal fang, and a wild Bengal specimen with the same sized fang has a 16" skull.

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

Can you imagine the skull measurement of that captive Amur with the upper canines that measure 6 1/2"? Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

The giant big cats will keep being respawning from the captivity.

With more patience, we can see many of them in our lifetime.

I just need more skull/canine correlated measurement from the Amur tiger in order to identity the skull size of that 6 1/2" fang. Reply

[tigerluver]

@GrizzlyClaws, from Christiansen's database I have two Amurs (body mass, CBL, crown length, specimen #):

221.0, 334.2, 59.0 Panthera tigris CN5697 

225.0, 337.8, 59.4 Panthera tigris CN6049

I might have other measurements lying around somewhere for other specimens, if I find them I'll you know. You will probably have to measure the crown length too for that specimen as most people seem to use that value. Reply