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Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur
Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur
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Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur
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@Thebingthing, we are greatly obliged by your favor of you sharing this specimen with us. If you could take another measurement if it's no problem? Could you measure the mandible length? Measure it first by choosing one side. Stick the measuring tape to the symphysis (tip of mandible) and keeping the tape in contact with the mandible, measure up to the furthest point at the back of the mandible. This will be one measurement.
The other measurement I'm looking for is the mandible as a whole. Measure the mandible from the symphysis to further point, but keep the tape in the middle of the jaw rather than running it parallel to one side. Here's a pictorial representation of the measurement. Follow the lines to as far of the mandible as possible.  *This image is copyright of its original author Many thanks!  (05-17-2015, 10:22 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: Comparison image:
By the way, here is the new table of the scientific records of the Bengal tigers (those between 1970 - 2015).
 *This image is copyright of its original author Save it for future references. Greetings to all.
Body size of the B.A.C. (Bengal, Amur and Caspian) tigers:
I am suffering of insomnia, or maybe is because tomorrow is the Independence day of my country and I have a day off, but I am not going to waste time. So, I manage to join the data of the three largest tiger subspecies/populations (depending of your belief) in one single comparative image. Check it out:  *This image is copyright of its original author As you can see, the three tiger groups are very close in average size (although I suspect that Caspian tigers are shorter, like the Sub-Saharan African lions), but there is no doubt that in the extremes, Bengal tigers top the scale and the tape. I also add the largest skulls reported in literature, in order to provide a "plus". On the other hand, I excluded the chest girths and I provided just an overall average weight, in order to save space, but if you see the original images there is no problem. On the skull situation, I decided to included the figure of 385 mm for the largest Caspian skull, quoted by Heptner & Sludskii (1992). I am aware that the other measurements don't fit (ZW of 205 mm and CBL of 305 mm). However, if the real measurements were 250 and 350 mm respectively? Maybe, if in some way, we could found the original source in Russian, we could see the real document. Well, enjoy the image, I am going to sleep. Greetings to all. 
09-15-2015, 03:12 PM
( This post was last modified: 09-15-2015, 03:13 PM by Thebingthing
Edit Reason: Typo
)
(09-15-2015, 05:58 AM)tigerluver Wrote: @Thebingthing, we are greatly obliged by your favor of you sharing this specimen with us. If you could take another measurement if it's no problem? Could you measure the mandible length? Measure it first by choosing one side. Stick the measuring tape to the symphysis (tip of mandible) and keeping the tape in contact with the mandible, measure up to the furthest point at the back of the mandible. This will be one measurement. Hi @tigerluver I just gave it a measure and it is 220mm down the central point and 230mm along the edge of the mandible. I hope that helps. Jonathan 
@GuateGojira , Happy independence day my friend. You have made some excellent images
Sunquists response on how he measured the Chitwan Tigers
 *This image is copyright of its original author And since this is the only email I have seen in response to this question  *This image is copyright of its original author Its safe to assume that is correct.
Don't worry @Pckts, I do have a clear and long answer from Dr Sunquist where he explain the entire issue.
I just can say that Wave is wrong (accidentally or intentionally) in his assumptions, at least for Indian and Nepalese tigers. For Amur tigers, I don't have an answer yet, but certainly his interpretations (an that of Warsaw) of the text in Kerley et al. (2005) is incorrect. Await for my next post, I will explain the entire issue.
Great Guate, Im glad you were one of the people he was speaking about.
Im excited to see his response. I wonder how many people actually asked him? I had no idea any body else was asking him or I would of held off on my question. Either way, good work.
The size of the Sundarbans tigers:
Here is the comparison between the Sundarbans tigers and the mainland tigers:  *This image is copyright of its original author As we can see, the difference is dramatic mostly in the weight, while in the body size, Sundarbans tigers are no smaller than the Indochinese tigers. In fact, if we see the only two weights from 1933, those figures are not so low, in comparison with other tiger populations, however, this seems something in the past, as modern tiger in the area are decreasing. One male captured in 2008 weighed 150 kg and is the heaviest, but the next one, captured in 2010 weighed only 115 kg. However, there is the problem that all the specimens captured since 2006 are in bad to very bad conditions, were found near villages hunting farm animals and some of them were even unable to hunt. One male of 98 kg was captured after it killed a goat, which means that this already small weight could even include some stomach content! The only specimen that was classified as in good condition was an old female of 12 years old that weighed 80 kg. So, the problem is how representative are these weights for the entire population. Are all these tigers in such a bad conditions? Tigers in the area are breading, which means that at least some territorial specimens most be in best condition, check this images, specially the first one, check the size compared with the man at the top of the cage:  *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  *This image is copyright of its original author These animals, although small, don't look so thin or in bad shape as the captured specimens in the list. However, at least that some specimen could be captured in they natural environment, we will be unable to know if this is the "normal" situation, physically speaking. Let's remember that the largest prey available in this area is the chital deer of 50 kg and the wild boar, slightly smaller. For comparison purposes, if we calculate and average weight "overall" of the modern Bengal tigers (including Sundarbans) we get an average figure of 200 kg (n=21) for males and 123 kg (n=34) for females. 
Its about a tie in my opinion. They are both similar in size, fight in precisely the same manner, etc.
Hi guys,
Ive never replied in this thread before. I personally think this thread is necessary, only for debating purpose. Many people say that Amurs are bigger than Bengals. But I dont think so I would say Bengals are either equal or infact bigger than Amurs. Bengals always been the bigger cat historically and in present. Amurs are never bigger in height or length than bengals. Its just an assumption. Ive seen many captive amurs and bengals (captive and wild). I like to say just one thing for you folks you got to see a wild bengal tiger from (north east, north west and north of india) before saying an amur is bigger than bengal. These Bengals are taller and longer than amurs and lions (south africa).  (11-04-2015, 07:44 PM)Apollo Wrote: Hi guys, As a general rule African lions are the tallest, Amur tigers are the longest, and Bengal tigers are the most robust of cats, there is however a great deal of overlap. Unfortunately large samples of scientific accurate measurements are only available from Russia, the Serengeti, and Kruger, all scientific records of Bengal tigers are from small samples 2 to 17 which are statistically irrelevant. I believe with a larger sample of Bengal tiger records an accurate range that includes 80% of the animals can be estimated..so we could say that 80% of the males of Amur,Bengal, and lions are in the range of 180 to 210 kg and 80% of the females would be 110-140 kg , I would want a sample of over one hundred specimens to support that. I do not understand the fascination of " the largest" male around and all the debate and fuss about it..the territorial males at their prime and largest size do not comprise more than 3% of the total tiger or lion population, the largest scientifically measured tigerT105 in Chitwan 261 kg is as relevant as 72 kg ten year old Sumatran tiger ( Sunquist and Prianta respectively ). In tiger ecology, research, and conservation all tigers matter, and in estimating feeding requirements, necessary prey base, and home range we consider the females of a species and not the males. Tigresses from Bengal and Amur eco types and lionesses are roughly the same 110-140 kg and they are what matters the most.
@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.
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. |
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