(12-23-2018, 12:31 PM)peter Wrote:

(12-22-2018, 11:43 PM)johnny rex Wrote:

(12-17-2018, 02:21 PM)peter Wrote:

(12-17-2018, 01:02 PM)johnny rex Wrote: Still no update from Altai's skull @peter ?

The largest tiger skull V. Mazak ever saw, was in Berlin (Germany). Some time ago, WaveRiders said it had disappeared. He feared it had been sold.

Had Mazak measured the skull personally?

Yes:

" ... The largest tiger skull I ever measured, was that of an old Ussuri male tiger from the northern part of Heilongjiang (northeastern China) that is in the Berlin Museum fur Naturkunde. I think it's interesting to add a number of details:

Greatest total length: 383,0 mm.
Condylobasal length: 342,0 mm.
Basal length: 316,2 mm.
Rostrum width: 113,0 mm.
Zygomatic width: 268,0 mm.
Mastoid width: 148,5 mm.
Mandible length: 260,0 mm.
Pm4: 37,8 mm.
Length of the right upper canine measured 'over curves': 74,5 mm.
Height of the sagittal crest (central part): 27-30 mm.
Height of the sagittal crest (posterior part): 47-50 mm.

At the end of this chapter, I want to add a bit more on the maximum skull length of Ussuri tigers. During his last trip to China in the sixties, J. Bartusek of the Czecho-Slovakian Institute for the Oriënt got an old photograph from an official source showing a very large skull of an old male tiger. It was assumed that the photograph was made ... by a European in northern China in the late thirties of the previous century. Although it has some dark sports typical of old photographs, it is in good condition. The back of the photograph (which measures 65 x 90 mm.) has a few handmade notes in English: Tiger, Chanwangshai; Length 16'', Width, 11 1/4; Height 7 11/16; Jaw (canines) 4 11/16; Mandible, 10 7/8; Canine, 3''; Sagittal crest 2''.

When comparing the measurements ... to those of (other large skulls), ..., this skull, most probably from the Zhangguangcailing Mountains, was that of an exceptionally large male Ussuri tiger. I think the measurements could be reliable, as it is likely that that a very large tiger, like the one ... shot in the upper range of the Sungari river (by V. Jankowski and his team), will produce an exceptional  skull ... " (V. Mazak, 1983, pp. 193-194 - rough translation from the German edition published in 1983).

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*This image is copyright of its original author

(12-20-2018, 01:39 PM)peter Wrote:

(12-20-2018, 07:11 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(12-19-2018, 08:21 PM)peter Wrote: And here's the, alleged, former Imperial Hunting Reserve (from 'The Tiger's Claw', M.L. Taylor, 1956):

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

According to G, Jankowski, the Imperial Hunting Reserve (also known as the Imperial Tiger Park) was created by one of the Manchurian Emperors. As hunting wasn't allowed for centuries (...), animals thrived. There are many rumours about the size of tigers in the Imperial Tiger Park. 

This is the part that worried me a time ago @peter. According with Susie Green in her book "Tiger" of 2006 (from the Animal series), in page 13 to 15 she says this:

"Besides differing coat markings, there is a huge variation in size between these subspecies, mainly because in hot climates animals usually decrease in size (the smaller the animal, the greater the evaporation surface area as a proportion of body weight, allowing more efficient dissipation of heat). However, Baikov and Yankovsky, hunting in Manchuria in the first half of the twentieth century, insist very large and much smaller tigers inhabited the same areas and that they were separate subspecies. As tigers are virtually extinct in the area it is impossible to check this, but Yakovsky claimed that many hundreds of years ago the ancient Mongol emperors designated hundreds of square miles of land north of theTumen river, quite nearwhat is now Vladivostok, as a sanctuary for tigers and leopards imported from India.(4) Over several centuries evolution, probably combined with selective culling of small tigers, lead to the emergence of a race of massive tigers possessing heavy, luxuriant, light-coloured coats, and reaching 4.25 m in length and weighing over 250 kg. Eventually, the sanctuary was abandoned and the tigers spread north to Sakhalin island and south to Korea and northern China, where they bred with the local tiger population creating a massive subspecies. Others claim that certain local mineral salts are responsible for the tiger’s great growth.(5) Yankovsky killed what was probably the last of these tigers around 1956."

She quote this source for the specific part about the sanctuary:
4. Mary Linley Taylor, The Tiger’s Claw: The Life-story of East Asia’s Mighty Hunter (1956).

IF, and only IF this is true, this suggest that the huge size of the Amur tigers actually came from the Bengal tigers! Did you ever found any information about this? I ask you because you collect old books. This is a mystery that botters me since while ago.

a - ABOUT THE BOOK OF MARY LINLEY TAYLOR AND THE GERMAN TRANSLATION I HAVE

The book I have is called 'In der Taiga'. It was published by Verlag Paul Parey (Hamburg, Berlin) in 1958. It's a German translation of 'The Tiger's Claw' of Mary Linley Taylor, that was published 1956.

In Germany, accuracy is much appreciated. My guess is that the German translation of 'The Tiger's Claw' is excellent.  

The book, by the way, was a present of a friend in Germany. He too is very interested in big cats.

b - ABOUT MARY LINLEY TAYLOR

Mary Linley Taylor was in Korea between 1918-1942. In Seoul, she met George Jankowski's daughter Ora (Victoria). She invited Mary Taylor to visit the home of her parents in the northern part of Korea. 

When Mary Taylor talked to George Jankowski, he was in his late fifties. As he was born in 1880, Mary Taylor and George Jankowski most probably met in the late thirties of the previous century. Taylor's book is largely based on her conversations with Jankowski. My guess is she made notes and added info from those who knew him. Apparently, she also read a book he wrote.

When her book was published, Georg Jankowski was unknown in the west. According to Taylor, Roy Chapman Andrews, Willard Price and Berman and Ferdinand Ossendowski were the only ones who had heard about him.   

c - ABOUT THE TITLE

When she was young, Mary Linley Taylor got a gift from her grandfather, who had been a sailor. It was a claw of a tiger. The claw was kept in a small handmade bag that had light blue emblems on it. They seemed to be Chinese, but were not.  

When she left England, her father asked her to find out as much as possible about the bag and the claw. In order to find answers, she visited many Asian countries. 

Mary Linley Taylor was not a tiger specialist, but knew more about them than most others. Her quest to find out as much as possible about the claw resulted in a book ('The Tiger's Claw') that was published in 1956.         

d - ABOUT SUZIE GREEN AND HER REMARK ON THE TIGERS IN THE ALLEGED FORMER IMPERIAL HUNTING RESERVE 

After reading your post, I reread the parts of Taylor's book that have info about the alleged former Imperial Tiger Park. Most of it is on page 42 of the German translation. To keep it short: there's nothing about India or Indian tigers on page 42. According to Georg Jankovski, the size of the tigers in the former Imperial Tiger Park was a result of good conditions and centuries of protection:

" ... Jahrhundertelang durfte innerhalb seiner Grenzen nicht gejagt werden. So gedieh das Raubwild und wurde viel starker als seine Ahnen ... " ('In der Taiga',  pp. 42).   

However. On page 41, India features in that Mary Linley Taylor saw a skin that was larger than the skins she had seen in india. Georg Jankowski saw she was interested and told her when and how the owner had been shot.  

So how did Suzie Green get to her remark on'" ... a sanctuary for tigers and leopards imported from India ... " (from your post)?

The answer is I don't know. My guess is she mixed rumours and slops and added a bit of chili. Most unfortunately, it was published. One result was that some of those interested tigers were affected. Another is she, indirectly, forced me to invest time in debunking her nonsense.  

e - SCANS (in German)

e1 - Title page and photograph:

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e2 - Page 41

It's about the part in green and yellow. In Jankowski's home, Mary Taylor saw a tiger skin that was larger than all the skins she had seen in India: 

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e3 - Page 42

Georg Jankowsky was sceptical of reports about extra-large tigers. He definitely was aware about the difference between a measurement taken 'over curves' and a measurement taken 'between pegs'. In spite of his doubts, he said that skins of up to almost 14 feet had been measured. Pocock (1929) also referred to a skin well exceeding 13 feet in length. The skin of the tiger shot in 1943 was over 375 cm. in total length. 

As to weight. A 'Zentner' is 100 German pounds or 50 kg. (111-112 English pounds). In his opinion, large males exceeded 5 'Zentner' or 250 kg. (550 English pounds). In this respect, he was quite conservative. According to his son Valery, the tiger shot in 1943 was at least 300 kg. In the book he published in 1993, he said the tiger was over 350 kg. (772 pounds).

There are more records of wild Amur tigers well exceeding 300 kg. In an evaluation published about a decade ago, all reports were qualified as 'unreliable'. I do not doubt they had good reasons, but that doesn't mean that these reports were a result of imagination. It means the proof needed was not there.

Anyhow. There's not a word about tigers or leopards imported from India. Suzie Green was crapping, that is. Here's the proof: 
     

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e4 - Page 138

It's about the third paragraph, in which the former Imperial Tiger Park is mentioned again. Not a word about Indian tigers or leopards:

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f - THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIAN AND AMUR TIGERS

In 2012, I visited a biologist in Belgium. When a big cat perished in a zoo or safaripark, they called him. The result was he had a nice collection of skulls. When I had measured all of them, he proposed to study skulls of Amur and Indian tigers in order to find the differences. We found so many, that I wouldn't know where to start. Most of them have never been described. Skullwise, they really are quite different from each other.

Every time I visited the big cat facility in the northern part of the Netherlands, I used the opportunity to watch the cats. When I interviewed trainers, we talked about the differences between tiger subspecies for hours. The directors I interviewed also had seen significant differences between different subspecies. To keep it short: there are many differences between Indian and Amur tigers.

As to transporting tigers from India to Manchuria in, say, 1500 or so.

I know the Romans transported exotic animals to Rome, but it isn't as easy as many think. It takes a lot of knowledge and a smooth organisation to keep wild animals healthy during transport. In the fifties of the last century, most of the cubs captured in Russia (13 out of 15 in one year only, according to Pikunov) perished during transport. You need commitment, knowledge, facilities and luck.

Today, Himalayan tigers are the largest wild big cats. Back then, based on everything known, Amurs most probably were. In the last two centuries, they suffered. Most of us have no idea about the effects of the problems they faced. In the thirties, fourties, fifties and sixties, Amur tigers were hunted to extinction in every region but the Primorsky Krai. A lot of variation vanished. Genetically, they're all but done for. I'm not surprised to read that they're now considering using the genes of some captive Amur tigers.

To conclude. Nothing can be excluded, but it seems very unlikely that the Manchurian rules would have visited India to transport Indian tigers to the Imperial Tiger Park.

(12-22-2018, 11:03 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: The Caspian tiger was no joke: 

A) Iran: 

Early 1940's: http://www.tigers.ca/Foundation%20overview/caspian2.htm 

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1912, this website also has other information, including on the Singaporean tiger: http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=248400&page=3&vc=1 

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B) Caucasus: 

Heptner and Sludskiy quoted Konstanin Satunin as saying that there was a huge Trans-Caucasian tiger with long fur and appearing "no smaller than a common Tuzemna horse", from Prishibinsk (present-day Göytəpə in Azerbaijan), Pages 141–144: 

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*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

C) Central Asia: 

Karakalpakstan, currently an autonomous republic in Uzbekistan: http://around-karakalpakstan.blogspot.com/2013/11/ 

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These Caspian tigers look good enough to be rivals for this Amur tiger from the Primorye region: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/books/review/Lewine-t.html

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It would moreover be helpful if we could have measurements for museum specimen, unless Vratislav Mazák (https://web.archive.org/web/20120309125526/http://www.science.smith.edu/msi/pdf/i0076-3519-152-01-0001.pdf) took care of that already? 

Medical College in Baku, Azerbaijan: http://www.tigers.ca/Foundation%20overview/caspian2.htm

*This image is copyright of its original author

Persian tiger in the Georgian National Museum: http://kavehfarrokh.com/heritage/the-last-iranian-tiger-in-georgia/, http://museum.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=120&info_id=847 

*This image is copyright of its original author

Also, check this out (https://wwf.ru/upload/iblock/d6d/atacollectionanalyzismodernsituation_all_eng.pdf), it gives surprising dates as to when people saw Caspian tigers in different parts of their range, long after the date of extinction given by this report (https://www.felineconservation.org/uploads/q22l_nov_dec_2014_web_version.pdf), which nevertheless provides an interesting insight as to what people did for the Caspian tiger before 1970.

(12-30-2018, 12:01 PM)Wolverine Wrote: Manchuria, 1930's, not small specimens at all.