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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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Here is a large bear fang, close to 4 inches.

The modern bears were evolved with smaller fangs because they are much more omnivorous than their prehistoric relatives.


*This image is copyright of its original author
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United States Pckts Offline
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(08-09-2015, 10:00 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(08-08-2015, 07:27 PM)Richardrli Wrote: @Pckts
I'm reading your debate with Warsaw on Carnivoraforum and he seems to have found first hand documentation that the 1943 Jankowski tiger with the quoted length of 11 feet 6 inches was in fact the skin length. I have no idea what's going on there as this is complete news to me and if that being the case then why did Mazak not specifically mention it? Presumably one of the Jankowski sons who informed Mazak about this tiger did not suffer from selective memory loss so it just seems bizarre that he didn't bring that up yet mentioned about the brown bear that the tiger supposedly ate. @peter, do you think Warsaw has found Russian language info that we (including yourself) simply have no access to?

Can you post the link to that debate? I am interesting to see the data of Warsaw.
Here is the bear predation and size debate for bears and Tigers
http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/10341695/2/

Here is the tiger size debate
http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/10333163/3/
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GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-11-2015, 08:51 AM by GuateGojira )

Thank you Pckts. As usual, Warsaw is an ignorant that twist information in favor of bears or any other animal, except tigers.

It is silly how he/she still claim that the Amur tigers were measured "over curves" when it is clear as water that they were measured in straight line. He/she don't even know the difference between the "over curve" method of the hunters and the new " straight along the spine" of scientists.

On his new bear records, I am not going to include them unless that he/she can provide correct references and translated into English.

It is also funny how coward he/she is that he/she can't even came here and make a direct debate, but instead he misquote me, in his best stile, and make an stupid post "trying" to show that he has provided "information" in old post in AVA, when if fact is not. He/she quotes Russian forums like "forum.zoologist.ru" like if someone of us were reading that place. Is in Russian, just he go there, but still, Warsaw is so stupid that he is unable to provide translated information, in an intent of maintain all the data in a dark light.

Warsaw, I know that you are reading my posts, don't be such a coward, present your data clear and translated. If not, only your Russian friends will believe in you.
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-11-2015, 09:24 PM by GrizzlyClaws )

Well, Warsaw maybe has some personal vendetta against tiger and tiger fans, but I still enjoyed his posts about bear, my default favorite animal.

Personally, I would still welcome him to join this forum.
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GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-16-2015, 04:28 AM by GuateGojira )

I disagree. Warsaw is a very biased person, if he only posted about bears that will be good, but he really hate tigers for "unknown reasons". I surely don't trust in him or his data, especially when he never translate the data in Russian. When you catch him in a point, he run to another one, if not, check his post against me, Peter or Pckts in Carnivora forum.

Incredible that all this started because Pckts published my comparison image of the Amur tigers and the Amur bear! Peter was right, that bears in my comparison is too large but if I change it to a smaller and more realistic form, Warsaw will die of diarrhea! Grin
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GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-16-2015, 04:33 AM by GuateGojira )

For those interested in the topic of "Tiger Subspecies",  it seems that the first reactions of the scientific community, about the "only two subspecies" issue, have started. Check this article:

Controversial study claims there are only two types of tiger


*This image is copyright of its original author
Kai is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany.
 
By Kai Kupferschmidt
26 June 2015 2:30 pm

Tiger numbers have dwindled worldwide, but tiger types may also be about to take a big hit. A controversial new study suggests that instead of nine subspecies of tiger, there are only two. The find could have a dramatic impact on tiger conservation, though not everyone agrees with the study’s conclusions.

The nearly 4000 tigers that remain in the wild are usually classed into six subspecies: the Siberian tiger, the Bengal tiger, the South China tiger, the Sumatran tiger, the Indochinese tiger, and the Malayan tiger. Three other subspecies are listed as extinct: the Bali, Caspian, and Javan tigers.

Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin investigated the differences between these subspecies by comparing skull measurements, fur pattern, ecology, and genetics. They used data that have already been published as well as collecting new data on several museum specimens of extinct subspecies. Combining the different traits, they found little evidence to reliably differentiate the nine subspecies.

Instead, they report today in Science Advances, they propose just two subspecies: Sunda tigers, made up of Sumatran tigers plus the extinct Javan and Bali tigers, and continental tigers, encompassing all the rest. Genetically, there were differences between the subspecies to be found, says Andreas Wilting, one of the authors of the paper. “But if we looked at all the traits together, we could only reliably distinguish two subspecies of tigers.”

The paper will surely cause a stir, says Urs Breitenmoser, a zoologist at the University of Bern, who was not involved in the study. “But I find the work quite convincing and in keeping with other findings in recent years,” like a paper that suggested the Caspian tiger and the Siberian tiger were the same subspecies, he says.


Breitenmoser is co-chair of the cat specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the organization that draws up the red list of threatened species. Two years ago, the cat specialist group asked a task force to update the taxonomy of all wild cats. Results are expected by the end of this year. “They are going to look at this new proposal as well,” Breitenmoser says.
Still, critics are pouncing. Collapsing the three Sunda subspecies into a single one may be reasonable, says Stephen O’Brien, a geneticist at the Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics in St. Petersburg, Russia, who generated some of the genetic data used in the paper. But the continental tiger shows enough differences genetically to be considered six separate subspecies.

Part of the problem is that tigers have had little time to evolve separate subspecies. Fossils suggest that the animals roamed across large parts of Asia 2 million years ago, but then something catastrophic happened. Genetic analysis suggests that about 70,000 years ago most of the animals were killed, probably when Toba, a supersized volcano on Sumatra, erupted. Probably just one small population survived, and all the variation seen today evolved in the last 70,000 years.


That is enough time for separate subspecies to be distinguishable genetically, but not morphologically, argues Shu-Jin Luo, a geneticist at Peking University in Beijing who works on endangered species. “Genetic data is much more reliable and objective than morphology,” she says. The nine subspecies can be distinguished genetically and that should be enough, she argues. That’s why she is skeptical of the new study, which also relied on anatomy and ecology.

If the new classification is adopted, it would spell some major changes for efforts to save the tiger. “The good thing is that it will make conservation easier”, says Volker Homes, a conservation specialist at the Worldwide Fund for Nature in Germany. For instance, Indian tigers, of which there may be up to 2000, could be used to bolster the population of South Chinese tigers, which are probably extinct in the wild, he says. Also, thousands of tigers born in zoos to parents of various subspecies would suddenly be eligible for breeding and rewilding programs.

But there may be negative consequences as well, Homes warns. Many countries are proud of hosting a unique tiger and classing several of these into one subspecies may translate into less effort to save them. “There is a danger that some countries don’t feel as responsible for protecting the tiger anymore, if it is not ‘their’ unique tiger.”

Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/...ypes-tiger

What do you think guys?
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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Overall, genetic > morphology, then I do agree that all mainland tigers should be reclassified as one single subspecies.
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GuateGojira Offline
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Hello guys, check this new image that I made, with the "largest tiger" measurements:


*This image is copyright of its original author


For details, you can check here: http://wildfact.com/forum/topic-who-is-t...rs?page=19

Greetings to all.
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tigerluver Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-16-2015, 08:22 AM by tigerluver )

Which tiger did you base the largest scientific tiger on?

Edit: Nevermind, saw your methods in the other thread. Although, unless I remember wrong, didn't @peter make a point that Smythies tiger may not have been baited or am I confusing this for some other specimen.
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GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-16-2015, 09:10 AM by GuateGojira )

In fact, I remember that @peter presented skepticism about the 320 kg record, probably influenced by the ideas of Waveriders. However, the record seems reliable just like the source and even if Smythies seems too "friendly" with the ruler of Nepal, that don't take reliability for the records.

I have read many old accounts of tiger hunts in Nepal, and all, including Smythies, states that the hunts were trough baiting. That is why I concluded that this male was probably hunted in this form.

I think that the tiger that you are referring is the record of 570 lb (259 kg) from Hewett. That was another case (it was in northern India) and Hewett clearly stated that a weight with baits is not useful and for that reason he don't used it. That is why the tiger of 570 lb was not baited.
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tigerluver Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-16-2015, 09:25 AM by tigerluver )

That makes sense and thanks for jogging my memory. 

Just a word of caution, I don't think the 221 cm body length corresponds to a 290 kg. Guate's great presentation shows more the combination greatest dimensions and weight of a tiger in a theoretical animal, albeit the greatest body length of 221 cm, with high certainty based on 30 specimens (I've posted the equations and database somewhere in the board), would be of specimen a ways over 300 kg. I wish Smythies' tiger was measured.
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GuateGojira Offline
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In fact, that is true, my image is just a "collection" of the maximum dimensions that a tiger can get, but the numbers came from several animals. For example, the great tiger of Brander with 221 cm in head-body, only had a chest girth of 150 cm, the figure of 160 cm came from another massive, but shorter, male tiger hunted by Cambell. The shoulder height of the Brander tiger was of 109 cm, but he measured a taller tiger at 112 cm and the Maharaha of Cooch Behar presented one specimen with 114 cm.

The figure of c.290 kg represent the heavy 320 kg tiger "unbaited", hypothetically speaking, as IF the specimen only ate 14 kg, for example, it could weight even more than 300 kg!

The large tiger of 320 kg vouched by Smythies (1942) measured 10 feet 9 inches (328 cm) in total length "over curves", which means an animal of 311-314 cm "between pegs". Sadly, as we know, the total length is an irrelevant measurements if don't have the actual length of the body and Smythies don't give more details about this animals, except the incredibly good draw in his book. Check it again:


*This image is copyright of its original author


It looks like a colored photograph. We can see that the tail is very short, so I guess that this is a good candidate to match the size of the giant tiger of Brander, in all its measurements.
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tigerluver Offline
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Even though body length would be better, total length still works well enough in weight predictions, bar the odd body types. Using the 311 cm-314 cm, I get a mass range of about 270-280 kg. For fun, say this tiger's tail is shorter, 0.45 of the body length, it's body length would be 215 cm-217 cm. Scaling the total length to be of the more common 1.5xbody length = total length, he'd be  323 cm-326 cm. By my formula, he could be anywhere from 305 kg-320 kg under these assumptions. Simple conjecture regardless, records leave so much to be desired in the morphological sciences department.
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GuateGojira Offline
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270-280 kg is not that far from the 290 kg estimation. Besides, as the tail is very short, probably there was more "body" than "tail" in that length, and the weight could be between 280-290 kg in the lower side.

I think that c.290 kg seems reliable for this tiger if it were un-baited, but a figure of c.300 kg is not out of the question (301 kg to be exact, using the data of Sunquist (1981)). The large tiger of Brander was estimated at about 600 lb (272 kg) in Brander words, but its weight could be obviously more.
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GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 08-31-2015, 01:22 PM by GuateGojira )

Bali, Bengal, Malayan or Sumatran tigers???

Did you remember that some time ago, someone put two pictures of allegedly the only two Balinese tigers in captivity? Well, here are again:


*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author


Many of us believed that, in fact, these tigers looks dark and more like an island tiger, so with no more evidence than that, we accepted that these were from Bali. However, I have found the following pages about the Ringling circus, with several pictures from the old days.

In the first pictures, it says: Woman holds front half of tiger which stands on its rear legs; on back "Put smile on the girl & tke helmet or hat off--make hair red (bobbed hair)" and "John Robinson" and "Miss Ione Carl wrestling 'Kittie' the Royal Bengel Junglebred Tiger"  So, it claims that this is a jungle-breed Bengal tiger. It was a cub, a female, or a mistake?
Source: http://emuseum.ringling.org/emuseum/view...d5dbf5a78e

The second picture: Animal trainer Mable Stark wrestling tiger Rajah inside cage; image ran in National Geographic in 1931. As far I remember, Mabel Stark used Bengal or Sumatran tigers, am I right?
Source: http://emuseum.ringling.org/emuseum/view...d5dbf5a78e

Following this line, nothing suggest that these were tigers from Bali, but certainly the size and the color of the coat make very doubtful the asseveration that these came from India. However, we most remember that in those days, a "Bengal" tiger could came from India, Nepal, Bangladesh or the entire area of Indochina! So, why these specimens could not came from Malaysia? Even further, I guess that these tigers, based in a simple visual judgement, are no other than Sumatran tigers. In fact, if we make a comparison, there is very little to use to separate them. Maybe a more accurate eye can support or disprove this.

So, my conclusion is that these two tigers are definitely not from Bali, but from Sumatra, especially the two from the second picture, with Mabel Stark.

Here are other images from her, and check the size and overall frame of the tigers:


*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author


Those animals scream "Sumatra" in all they forms.

What do you think guys?
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