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+--- Thread: Terai vs Assam (/topic-terai-vs-assam)
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RE: Terai vs Assam - Jimmy - 11-05-2016
@parvez, Thanks, Actually Nepal is a broader term So iam concentrating solely on Terai stretch of land that runs parallel to the himalayas. So here i go, by diversity in Terai i mean topography, like variation in altitude, as well as wetness and dryness. eg. dryland animals like nilgai, blackbuck, striped hyenas and in some places wolves (not found in Nepal's Terai) are found, then there are also wild dogs, serows in hilly regions and wetter parts. I am not sure if these animals are found in Assam. Chital is also absent from Assam parks to my knowledge, or is it Kaziranga iam not too sure. Then there are hog deer, gaur, wild buffaloes (which are now extinct from major terai region but found in eastern Nepal), swamp deer sambar, sloth bear and himalayan black bear (found in Bardia but not in Chitwan)which are found in both regions. Also muggers and gharials in aquatic ecosystem are found in Terai. However, Assam has got numbers and density of animals in it's side i.e. there are large hervibores in great numbers, different species of herbivores share the same ecosystem wheras in terai they are distributed and spread in different ecosystem without overlapping. Regarding grasslands you are correct Terai is mostly forest (chitwan is 70% forest and 20% grassland) what about Manas national park it's simialr to Terai i assume (i know Kaziranga has more grassland than forest). though there is huge chunk of grassland in Shuklaphanta which infact has the biggest natural grassland in Nepal 25s q.kms of grass land. I will be interested to know about vegetation and topography of Assam esp Manas and Kaziranga. To my knowledge, historically, Terai also had vast grassland but was cleared for agriculture because forest was deemed more productive than grasses back then.
RE: Terai vs Assam - parvez - 11-05-2016
Thanks for the detailed explanation Jimmy.
RE: Terai vs Assam - parvez - 11-05-2016
@Jimmy I came to know manas too has high percentage of grasslands (50%). Kaziranga too must be having around the same or even more. Orang must be having the same as it is called mini kaziranga. While nameri has less amount of grasslands which is why the tigers there are not as freakish as in the above three national parks. But they does not seem to be lacking the stockiness and muscularity of assam tigers which still remains a mystery for us. But the common thing for them is the river brahmaputra flows through them. This river must be having the magic for sure lol. Even in some areas of nepal, the grasslands may be more, but in terai the different river flows Ganges and it's tributaries. Ganges may be for diversification and freakiness brahmaputra may be for stockiness as well as freakiness
RE: Terai vs Assam - Jimmy - 11-06-2016
@parvez, surely here is one population surviving on chital and sambar and here is a population surviving on buffaloes. Grassland is more productive for herbivores esp. for grassland specialist like Rhinos, Wild buffaloes and Barahsinge, sadly these two animals are lacking in major parks of Terai. which in turn supports density of carnivores in a relatively small area and we are seeing that in Kaziranga I am sure. In Chitwan half of the park is covered by hills- which extends to Parsa reserve 90% and all the way to Valmiki reserve in India, there are gaurs and sambars but these are not a grassland specialist like I mentioned above and forested ecosystem has less density of large prey, so that may be compromising the bulkiness in tigers. But we do know that Terai habitat will produce large tigers with great dimensions as seen in Corbett and Chitwan and that this habitat should be revived with buffaloes and Barahsinge atleast (they were here historically here alngwith Nilgai and chital) to make its grassland habitat more productive.
RE: Terai vs Assam - parvez - 11-06-2016
@ jimmy I am really enjoying my discussion with knowledgeable
poster like you. Please don't mind I am unable to tag anyone due to mobile phone issues. But as you said nepal lacks buffaloes but they surely have rhinos. Rhinos surely must be responsible for their great sizes as you can see some of nepal tigers are as tall as the biggest ones from assam. But assam seems to have highest mode of giant tigers. Other herbivores like elephants too may be contributing who knows. Do you know about Corbett tigers of old times when buffaloes existed there were as stocky as present Assam tigers? Through that we may infer that buffaloes may be responsible for stockiness in tigers. Rhinos are present in both sides. So we cannot say rhinos are responsible for stockiness. If buffaloes are not responsible then surely something out of reach of modern science is going on there.
RE: Terai vs Assam - Jimmy - 11-06-2016
Thanks @parvez, I am posting what I know, also you guys must know more about Corbett and Indian parks. I am taking Nepal side of Terai and taking as a reference though i know that may have its own limitation. Now regarding your quriosity, actually nepal doesn't lack buffaloes they are just in different reserves that does not contain tigers. So probably tigers evolved in terai also to take them but also other fleetfootd prey alongside with it and also traverse mountains habitat to search out gaurs and serows. So different tigers having differnt capabilities and then producing offsprings will have genes that will cancel any extremes and be of an avg to fit in any environment. In kaziranga it's quite differnt, prey overlaps, congregation of swamp inhabitants and basically the density in one single area I think is the major factor. All tigers experience the same prey no matter where the habitat inside kaziranga so they must have evolve d to be an specialist of the same area I.e to kill large bovine or a swamp specialist that's my humble opinion. For eg if you bring a hulking tiger of kaziranga and let it out on a mountainous terrain of Chitwan to hunt sambar and serows I think it will find catching local prey difficult so that's what different in these habitat. Though I doubt even a huge male Chitwan will prefer this kind of habitat for prey.
RE: Terai vs Assam - parvez - 11-06-2016
(11-06-2016, 11:39 AM)Jimmy Wrote: Thanks @parvez, I am posting what I know, also you guys must know more about Corbett and Indian parks. I am taking Nepal side of Terai and taking as a reference though i know that may have its own limitation. Now regarding your quriosity, actually nepal doesn't lack buffaloes they are just in different reserves that does not contain tigers. So probably tigers evolved in terai also to take them but also other fleetfootd prey alongside with it and also traverse mountains habitat to search out gaurs and serows. So different tigers having differnt capabilities and then producing offsprings will have genes that will cancel any extremes and be of an avg to fit in any environment. In kaziranga it's quite differnt, prey overlaps, congregation of swamp inhabitants and basically the density in one single area I think is the major factor. All tigers experience the same prey no matter where the habitat inside kaziranga so they must have evolve d to be an specialist of the same area I.e to kill large bovine or a swamp specialist that's my humble opinion. For eg if you bring a hulking tiger of kaziranga and let it out on a mountainous terrain of Chitwan to hunt sambar and serows I think it will find catching local prey difficult so that's what different in these habitat. Though I doubt even a huge male Chitwan will prefer this kind of habitat for prey.I got your point jimmy. I too used to think like that in my early days of discussion. Stabilisation of prey is what you should be discussing. Kaziranga tigers from grasslands will be living in same grassland habitat for generations with the same prey. So there is only one way to evolve while in chitwan they have to migrate from one area to other which are diverse on their own. So there are two different habitats to get adjusted to and evolve. They must be feeling the stress or confused during evolution for next generation. They are uncertain as to which genes should be passed on. While in kaziranga there is only one kind of habitat in grasslands they are sure to pass on which kind of genes to their offspring right. In this way they must be growing stocky and completely muscular. The stabilized tigers in same habitat if mated must produce these tigers. It will be interesting to know if the old school Nepal tigers were as stocky as present Assam tigers as these Nepal tigers had vast grasslands for larger areas.
RE: Terai vs Assam - Jimmy - 11-06-2016
Actually we are talking about difference here but in reality both groups of tiger will have more similarities than differences. If you take a dominant male of Chitwan like Sauraha male to kaziranga, it will surely look like a dominant male of great size of that area and vice versa. So it takes just a few generations to close that gap. Basically both are northern groups that offers the richest prey and competition and similarities are more profound than differences.
RE: Terai vs Assam - Jimmy - 11-06-2016
Quote:parvez: It will be interesting to know if the old school Nepal tigers were as stocky as present Assam tigers as these Nepal tigers had vast grasslands for larger areas
Here you go, the first video already appears in Vintage section in Wild Fact, the second i found in Youtube. In addition, in National library of Nepal, there are some pictures of royal hunts during those time, with some sequence photos even showing a bull elephant pushing a tiger in mid-air with it's trunk while it attacked, but these ancient B/W photographs are so old it looks like a retouched painting. Size wise those tigers look big but hard to just predict if they were bigger than present ones or not, the place definetely seems to be wilder though with huge elephant grass covering everything.
RE: Terai vs Assam - parvez - 11-06-2016
(11-06-2016, 05:57 PM)Jimmy Wrote:Quote:parvez: It will be interesting to know if the old school Nepal tigers were as stocky as present Assam tigers as these Nepal tigers had vast grasslands for larger areas
Here you go, the first video alreadyTh appears in Vintage section in Wild Fact, the second i found in Youtube. In addition, in National library of Nepal, there are some pictures of royal hunts during those time, with some sequence photos even showing a bull elephant pushing a tiger in mid-air with it's trunk while it attacked, but these ancient B/W photographs are so old it looks like a retouched painting. Size wise those tigers look big but hard to just predict if they were bigger than present ones or not, the place definetely seems to be wilder though with huge elephant grass covering everything.
Thank you very much jimmy ?. Those are great videos but as you said it is hard to predict if they were as stocky as present Assam tigers. But I think they don't appear to be as stocky as per my view. But we have to listen to others opinion before coming to conclusion. We must refer extinction thread of peter for more pictures. I think stockiness has some relation with the surroundings of Assam wilderness which needs to be discovered Imo.
RE: Terai vs Assam - Apollo - 11-06-2016
@Jimmy
Kindly post that second video in Vintage thread also.
If you have any old pics and vids kindly share it there aswell.
Thanks
RE: Terai vs Assam - Pckts - 11-06-2016
(11-06-2016, 05:57 PM)Jimmy Wrote:Check out how they measured the tigress in the 2nd video.Quote:parvez: It will be interesting to know if the old school Nepal tigers were as stocky as present Assam tigers as these Nepal tigers had vast grasslands for larger areas
Here you go, the first video already appears in Vintage section in Wild Fact, the second i found in Youtube. In addition, in National library of Nepal, there are some pictures of royal hunts during those time, with some sequence photos even showing a bull elephant pushing a tiger in mid-air with it's trunk while it attacked, but these ancient B/W photographs are so old it looks like a retouched painting. Size wise those tigers look big but hard to just predict if they were bigger than present ones or not, the place definetely seems to be wilder though with huge elephant grass covering everything.
Straight line, tape measure pressed down, head raised etc.