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Amur Tigers
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Please share your info on amur tigers.
One man (former employee of Zoo Prague) told me that there are basically two kinds of amur tigers. First - "real" amurs - are not exceptionally tall, but long and robust. Second - so called "Leipzig line" - are tall, but not so robust and not so heavy. Do you have any info on this? 
Like in any topic about Amur tigers, the tables about wild specimens are mandatory, here they are, the last edition:
 *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 Save them in your database. The list about the captive specimens was made by KingTheropod. Greetings to all. [img]images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
Tiger vs Bear in the Russian Far East:
 *This image is copyright of its original author Scientists from the Siberian Tiger Project have been working since 1992 and had found that the male tigers and male bears avoid each other because they know that they are a real danger form them and there is no need to enter in a futile fight. Now, bears are known to follow young and female tigers and they steal them kills when they can. These are the “satellite” bears that specifically follow these relative small sized tigers, and in all cases, these are male bears. However, when a fight arises and if the bear wins, they are able to eat the dead tiger and there are several accounts of these situations in literature. However, the only male tiger killed in this fights was a 3 year old tiger that was still been feed by his mother, obviously not fully grown. On the other hand, tigers don’t follow bears to steal they kills, they follow them to KILL them as kills, but only when they natural prey is scarce. There are also several records of tigers killing bears, and these are not only females, but also male bears of up to 320 kg. There is a case recorded by Jankovsky (quoted by Mazák, 1983) where he hunted a huge tiger that had killed and eaten an enormous male bear, however the tiger was also very large, estimated at no less than 300 kg, so there was some parity on the size. The modern records presents some tigers, like the male P-20 (AKA “Dale”) that specialized in killing bears of slightly over its own size (he rangend from 170 to 205 kg according with 3 captures). It seems that tigresses kill female bears and they cubs only, while male tigers can and do kill males and females (more biased to the second case, obviously). So, in conclusion, male tigers and male bears avoid each other (there is no reason to fight), but they attack females in both cases (bears steal prey, and if they can, kill and eat; tigers directly kill and eat). It seems that the evidence suggest that tigers directly predate on bears, while bears are specialized in steal tiger kills and predate on them indirectly. Tigers dominate bears in the Russian Far East. By the way, peter, could you put the page of Mazák where he mention the large male bear killed by the record tiger? 
You guys tell me if you think these amurs look short in the shoulder?
Amurs always seemed plenty tall at the shoulder to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTGRtwV1RII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtriwH-8-8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1R9ZIhamhg 
I think Peter once posted about two types of Amur tigers.
The once from Northern China, Korea, Mangolia are generally bigger and heavier. The other once from Siberia and Russia are smaller in built. I guess Peter can explain it better again.
Tigers lived trough a large area in the northeast of Asia. There are records from the Baikal sea trought the Amur region and up to the tip of Korea. Taking in count the large intraspecific variation that exits in the population of the Indian subcontinent, I found very plausible that some type of variation do existed among the population of the Amur tigers, this without taking in count the variation that allready exited between the Caspian population and that from the Russian Far East.
It is important to mention that this variations are NOT subspecies, as all these tigers have the same haplotypes and then, belongs to a single widespread population know as Panthera tigris virgata or like I prefer to say, the "Northern Asian tiger", that ranged from the Caspian Sea trought Central Asia, the Siberian region up to the Baikal Sea spreading trought the Amur river up to the Korean region. [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]  (04-16-2014, 10:35 AM)'Apollo' Wrote: I think Peter once posted about two types of Amur tigers. I can't get to the scan you referred to, but I will in some time. For now, I can say tigers in northern Asia were common in all of Korea, south-east Russia, northern China, eastern Mongolia and, of course, many parts north-east, east, south and south-west of the Caspian (up to the Elburz Mountain Range in north-west iran). Heptner and Sludskij (I got the German translation published in 1980) wrote Russian, Korean and Chinese hunters distinguished between Korean and Amur tigers. Dunbar Brander also distinguished between both. He wrote Korean tigers were somewhat smaller than Indian tigers, whereas Amur tigers were described as 'immense hairy animals'. He referred to footprints he saw himself close to Wladivostok. Just before AVA collapsed, I was contacted by someone working for a wildlife conservation society in South-Korea. He send four articles (in English) on Korean tigers. Two had detailed measurements of two male tigers. I couldn't scan them yet, but I will in a few weeks. The information I have points towards large and heavy animals in Manchuria. Those in Russia and North-Korea were smaller than Manchiurian tigers, but larger than those in southern parts of Korea. There is no doubt some islands at the south-western tip of Korea had tigers not so long ago. I also think the Caspian region had different types. One wonders if there are skulls in some museums in South-Korea and north-east China. 
That skull on the top of the 3, is massive!
The canines on these bottom two are also absurd. Thanks for sharing.
I did'nt know that middle skull was a lion? Looks more tiger like to me, but I am no expert on skull identification, especially in a smaller picture. But either way, that top skull is massive.
I can't imagine any tiger having much larger canines than that one pictured. (04-21-2014, 11:00 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: I did'nt know that middle skull was a lion? Looks more tiger like to me, but I am no expert on skull identification, especially in a smaller picture. But either way, that top skull is massive. The small picture has all tiger skulls in there, while the large picture has tiger and lion skull stand side by side, the larger one belongs to tiger, the smaller one belongs to lion. (04-20-2014, 07:46 AM)'peter' Wrote:(04-16-2014, 10:35 AM)'Apollo' Wrote: I think Peter once posted about two types of Amur tigers. Thanks for the explanation Peter. |
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