(03-24-2022, 12:00 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: On the weight of Madla male - M-125:

Good question and this is something that I wanted to wrote about since some time ago.

As we know, Dr Chundawat managed to observe several male tigers during his 10 years study in Panna, directly and indirectly, but he could capture only two: M-91 and M-125.




Acording with at least two independent sources, both males weighed 250 kg or more, but there are details that we need to check.

Here is the first source from M-91:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

The next one is the confirmation via the person that witnesed the weighing (Mike Birkhead) of male M-125 and is supported by the documentary "Tigers in the Emerald Forest":

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, as we can see, both of them are very big male tigers, but Dr Chundawat mentions that they were baited so he adjusted the weights of all his tigers. The book from 2018 "The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Tigers" is the last word on the study of the Panna tigers during the 10 years that Dr Chundawat worked with the tigers. In his book he says that based in visual estimation the stomach content was estimated between 25 - 30 kg. However, there is an important point on this, check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, as we can see the "visual estimation" seems to be exagerated as the actual stomach content was of 19 kg for the largest male, which interestingly match with the averages stablished by Dr Sunquist in Nepal (1981) with ranges between 14 - 19 kg in 24 hours.

And finally this stament is the one that pushed me to investigate all this case:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


So, we can see that he says that the biggest tiger was M-91, not M-125, so what about this email?

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

As we can see, the entire explanation on the email is, in fact, what happen when they weighed the male M-91, not M-125, and that is the confusion. That is something that we can see here:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

There it is showed that the real weight of male M-91 "empty" was more than 240 kg, and this because the male bottomed the scale of 250 kg, they knew that the scale could weight 10 kg more (total of 260 kg available by the scale) and taking in count that the tiger ate 19 kg, the final value was of 241 kg, but as there is no form to know how much more the tiger actually weighed, they stated that the empty weight was just over 240 kg.

Now about male M-125 (Madla tiger) its weight is stated between 220 - 230 kg because 20-30 kg is the stomach  amount estimated by the workers, but probably the real amount will be the same as the other male, so its empty weight will be 230 kg. There is no other mention if this tiger also bottomed the scale or not, only that male M-91 was bigger. Sadly, we only have one picture of it and apparently the male "Hairyfoot" was even bigger than both of them, probably another cantidate for 260 kg "empty", but sadly it was not captured.

So, this is the conclution based in the facts, the real weight of male M-125 was of 250 kg and that of M-91 was over 260 kg, but when adjusted for stomach content they were calculated at 230 and 240+ kg respectivelly.

Hope this helps to clasify the issue and if no one noticed before, I have been used the 240 kg figure since many months ago.


Is interesting that now the sample of Panna is, for the moment, the largest (talking about numbers) among scientific sources in India, with average figures of 216 kg (n=8; range: 180 - 240+ kg) for males and 129 kg (n=9; range= 105 - 152 kg) for females.

(03-09-2022, 12:54 AM)abhisingh7 Wrote:

(03-09-2022, 12:36 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(03-08-2022, 04:55 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: First of all i was confirmed that the tigers from Buthan (Near to Assam area, near to Royal Manas NP). From my research they are Himalayan Tigers, which are considered to be one of the biggests looking at some pictures. The weight for adult males was 165 kg, 170 kg, 180 kg and 210 kg. (pers com Buthan Tiger Center)

Like Ashutosh says, you are making a completelly incorrect assumption here. It is like saying that because Sundarbans is near to the Assam, in comparison with Cental Indian tigers, they are of the same region. In just a couple of kilometers the habitat change a lot in the Indian subcontinent, the Assam is very diffeente from the regions of Bhutan, habitat is completelly different and even prey base is different. 

By they way, who says that Bhutan tigers are big? Based in pictures? are you serious? There is no information about tigers from Bhutan, those are the first 4 weights reported in modern records and in the entire hunting litterature, so we can't make assumptions for the moment. Also, we miss the details of the individuals, age and health status is necessary.

What is interesting is that the body mass is similar to the Indochinese tigers, in males at least:
Indochina male tigers: 181 kg - n=11 - range: 162 - 209.
Bhutan male tigers: 181 kg - n=4 - range: 165 - 210.

Let's see what new information they provide in the future. I also wrote to them, but they do not answered to me.

tigers hunted by mahraja of cooch beher were from same vegetation as we have in bhutan and buxa tiger reserve (currently no tiger in buxa tiger reserve). these tigers are among smallest mainland bengal tigers .

(03-24-2022, 12:00 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(03-22-2022, 09:05 PM)Jerricson Wrote: Hello guate , I have quite read your posts regarding weights of lion and tigers and they r quite informative. I just wanted to enquire about madlas (m-125) weight. In one of the documents , its said he weighed around 220-230kg and in another mail from Dr. Raghu Chundawat , he was stated to weigh around 250kg. So whats the final conclusion on his weight??

On the weight of Madla male - M-125:

Good question and this is something that I wanted to wrote about since some time ago.

As we know, Dr Chundawat managed to observe several male tigers during his 10 years study in Panna, directly and indirectly, but he could capture only two: M-91 and M-125.

Acording with at least two independent sources, both males weighed 250 kg or more, but there are details that we need to check.

Here is the first source from M-91:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The next one is the confirmation via the person that witnesed the weighing (Mike Birkhead) of male M-125 and is supported by the documentary "Tigers in the Emerald Forest":

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, as we can see, both of them are very big male tigers, but Dr Chundawat mentions that they were baited so he adjusted the weights of all his tigers. The book from 2018 "The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Tigers" is the last word on the study of the Panna tigers during the 10 years that Dr Chundawat worked with the tigers. In his book he says that based in visual estimation the stomach content was estimated between 25 - 30 kg. However, there is an important point on this, check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, as we can see the "visual estimation" seems to be exagerated as the actual stomach content was of 19 kg for the largest male, which interestingly match with the averages stablished by Dr Sunquist in Nepal (1981) with ranges between 14 - 19 kg in 24 hours.

And finally this stament is the one that pushed me to investigate all this case:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, we can see that he says that the biggest tiger was M-91, not M-125, so what about this email?

*This image is copyright of its original author

As we can see, the entire explanation on the email is, in fact, what happen when they weighed the male M-91, not M-125, and that is the confusion. That is something that we can see here:

*This image is copyright of its original author

There it is showed that the real weight of male M-91 "empty" was more than 240 kg, and this because the male bottomed the scale of 250 kg, they knew that the scale could weight 10 kg more (total of 260 kg available by the scale) and taking in count that the tiger ate 19 kg, the final value was of 241 kg, but as there is no form to know how much more the tiger actually weighed, they stated that the empty weight was just over 240 kg.

Now about male M-125 (Madla tiger) its weight is stated between 220 - 230 kg because 20-30 kg is the stomach  amount estimated by the workers, but probably the real amount will be the same as the other male, so its empty weight will be 230 kg. There is no other mention if this tiger also bottomed the scale or not, only that male M-91 was bigger. Sadly, we only have one picture of it and apparently the male "Hairyfoot" was even bigger than both of them, probably another cantidate for 260 kg "empty", but sadly it was not captured.

So, this is the conclution based in the facts, the real weight of male M-125 was of 250 kg and that of M-91 was over 260 kg, but when adjusted for stomach content they were calculated at 230 and 240+ kg respectivelly.

Hope this helps to clasify the issue and if no one noticed before, I have been used the 240 kg figure since many months ago.


Is interesting that now the sample of Panna is, for the moment, the largest (talking about numbers) among scientific sources in India, with average figures of 216 kg (n=8; range: 180 - 240+ kg) for males and 129 kg (n=9; range= 105 - 152 kg) for females.

(03-26-2022, 01:55 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Also I'm a bit confused about the weights because of the email. In the email from Chundawat it says that the "minimum" weight (with stomach content) is 250 kg excluding the weighting things of 10+ kg (equipment, collar ...) with c.20 kg stomach content. 

In general bottomed weights do exceed the number but include equipment weight. Like the male lion puyol for instance exceeded 200 kg and reached in the 2nd turn 250 kg. Well it included bed equipment of 13 kg and therefore the weight could be adjusted to 237 kg. As he had stomach content his empty weight was c.220 kg.

(03-25-2022, 11:05 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: Duars: 206 kg, 204 cm (curves) n=12
Assam: 207 kg , 204 cm (curves) n=14
C.Behaar: 215 kg , 204 cm (curves) n=8

(03-06-2022, 12:23 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Also beside that i was confirmed about the 170 kg male from Buthan and they shared 3 other males when i asked about other adult males.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

They reply very quick....

(03-26-2022, 03:48 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(03-06-2022, 12:23 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Also beside that i was confirmed about the 170 kg male from Buthan and they shared 3 other males when i asked about other adult males.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

They reply very quick....

I finally received a reply from the Bhutan Tiger Center confirming these 3 weights.

However, I found the original conversation between the person that presented this image and them.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Interestingly, when we see the original question we can see that he asked for how many adult males they weighed, and they clearly answered that they have 3. They do not mention the male of 170 kg, BUT we need to remember that sometimes the news papers provide round numbers, so is possible that the male of 170 kg is the one of 165 kg.

Base on this and in the Messenger conversation (is not an email) the Bhutan male tigers recorded are only 3, not 4.

(03-26-2022, 02:34 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(03-25-2022, 11:05 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: Duars: 206 kg, 204 cm (curves) n=12
Assam: 207 kg , 204 cm (curves) n=14
C.Behaar: 215 kg , 204 cm (curves) n=8

Using the original data from the Maharaja of Cooch Behar (1908) and Brown (1893), the correct figures are:

Duars: 206 kg - n=14; range: 177.8 - 225 kg
Assam: 202 kg - n=19; range: 168.3 - 230.4 kg.
Cooch Behar: 211 kg - n=11; range: 180.5 - 236 kg.

These figures exclude all the specimens labeled as "gorged" or "full of beef".

(03-26-2022, 04:25 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: The first thing was to confirm if the information on that website for the male of 170 kg was true. After they replied to me I asked for other males and they provided me weights of 165, 180 and 210 kg. And after that asked if these males were adults and they said yes.

(03-26-2022, 04:50 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Also that with the scale wasn't a excuse but a general thing. As Chundawat said 10+ kg it must be a bed equipment. It depends how from those ropes were used. Anyways will use that what chundawat advice to use...

[attachment=7645 Wrote:GuateGojira pid='164576' dateline='1648254215']

(03-26-2022, 04:25 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: The first thing was to confirm if the information on that website for the male of 170 kg was true. After they replied to me I asked for other males and they provided me weights of 165, 180 and 210 kg. And after that asked if these males were adults and they said yes.

Can you show the full conversation then?

(03-26-2022, 04:51 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: Also I found something about a 8ft 10 adult male tiger weighing 149 kg but cant find the source rn.Reply

(03-26-2022, 06:59 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(03-26-2022, 04:51 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: Also I found something about a 8ft 10 adult male tiger weighing 149 kg but cant find the source rn.Reply

Thank you for the information on the Bhutan tigers. So we keep te 4 males. 

A tiger of 149 kg is certainly from smaller subespecies, maybe from South China. I remember one male from Naga Hills, India, of 150 kg, that could be the one.

(03-27-2022, 03:41 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Btw, you did notice the weight of P212 right? The average for males from Panna will be then 217 kg.

The tiger from Rajasthan with the weigth of 149 kg and 8ft 10 inches came from this article. But it was 17 years old and died in a accident. Its now for money.... so cant open it.
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp...784746.ece

I found also another good article. This male of 3-4 years weighed 172.45 kg (But on a empty stomach). 
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/...o-5162719/

(03-27-2022, 06:44 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 03:41 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Btw, you did notice the weight of P212 right? The average for males from Panna will be then 217 kg.

The tiger from Rajasthan with the weigth of 149 kg and 8ft 10 inches came from this article. But it was 17 years old and died in a accident. Its now for money.... so cant open it.
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp...784746.ece

I found also another good article. This male of 3-4 years weighed 172.45 kg (But on a empty stomach). 
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/...o-5162719/

Sorry, I still don't update the tiger tables, so I think you are right with the Panna tigers 

About the tiger of 149 kg it looks like a female or a male in very bad shape. I remember a male of only 100 kg that was emaciated in India. Those records are obviously not included.

About the third tiger of 172 kg, definitelly was not un good conditions, even then I already included in one of the previous revisions.