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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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 (04-04-2017, 08:18 AM)Pckts Wrote: Maybe so, are we able to determine which time frame the small number of Amur body dimensions are from? 1. Show me your stud books that there is no pure Bengal tiger in this world beside in India zoo. I don't need to hear anything. Just show me the stud book saying that there is no pure breed Bengals with genetic analysis. 2. How come their size is smaller just because it was mixed? Their size can't be decreased unless it was mixed with the Sumatran tiger and the Malayan tiger. Mixed breed of Great Dane and Mastiff dogs are smaller than their parents? Not even true. They are about the same size as other Great Dane and Mastiff dogs. 3. I clearly remember someone wrote in wildfact. Captive Bengal tiger in India is around 170 to 210 kg. Captive Bengal tiger in India is smaller than wild Bengal tiger. 4. You said prey availability doesn't matter? Have you studied biology in college? Food intake (prey availability) is absolutely does matter unless you are comparing completely different species like domestic cat vs big cats or songbirds vs eagles. How come people were smaller and shorter back in 100 years ago. 6 ft was considered as a giant height pre-1940 for both American and European. Why? Because many people couldn't eat a lot. It's 100% different today. Many Europeans and White Americans are easily 5'10'' these days. My mom is Austrian. Average man height is 5'10'' to 5'11'' in Austria. 6 ft is common height when I was in Austria. But 6 ft is pretty tall height if you are comparing to old people (50 to 90 years old ). It was around 5'7'' to 5'8'' (men) in early 1900. This is the same for tiger size. There is almost no food intake in Russian Far East, Northeast China, and Korea due to long development and war since late 1800. Put those Assam Bengal tiger cubs and mothers in low prey density area. Check every single Asam Bengal tiger cubs and their generations could grow huge size and weight after 20 years.. (04-02-2017, 09:41 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(03-01-2017, 02:46 AM)Master Chief Wrote: I am sorry, but I have more more doubt about what you wrote. This is what I am dubious about your statement. This is you? https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raul_Valvert Your degree is Business Administration? Hence, you didn't studied any of important biology courses. Now I can understand why did you wrote Panthera tigris virgata instead of Panthera tigris altaica. 1. The most important fact. Taxonomy of the Amur tiger is not virgata. I think you are using virgata because you believe Caspian and Amur are the same subspecies after having read your posts. You cannot change their scientific name as you want. The western populations are gone anyway. They are only surviving in Northeast Asia today. No one will use virgata even if International Code of Zoological Nomenclature accepts as a single subspecies. Every journals and publication papers are using Panthera tigris altaica. You cannot change and using different taxonomy just because you believe those 2 subspecies are the same. No one will going to accept any publication with wrong taxonomy. This is the most important in zoology and systematics 2. I agree with Amur tiger is smaller than Bengal tiger in wild these days. I believe in you. However, prey biomass is extremely low in Amur tiger habitat. We don't know their size if Amur tiger habitat has a high prey biomass just like in India and Nepal. I would want to see size of the Bengal tiger if they are living in low prey biomass area. The Amur is generally larger than the Bengal If you put in the same prey condition like in zoo. 3. If your conclusion is correct, then it should have been changed in journal 10 years ago. You said they aren't the largest cat, but captivity is opposite as you wrote. It might have been different in wild during early 1900. 
I like to repost one of my oldpost with more info.
Hi Everyone, I like to post some info on Amurs and Bengals. Some of the data is borrowed from @GuateGojira and @Kingtheropod , so the credits for those info should goto them. Here are some remarks from some of the leading expert scientists in the field, 1. “Contrary to earlier perceptions, measurements obtained from tigers captured for radiotelemetry studies in the Indian subcontinent (Sunquist 1981; Karanth, unpubl. data) show that they are not smaller than tigers captured in the Russian Far East (Dale Miquelle and John Goodrich, unpubl. data).” K. Ullas Karanth, 2003. http://www.nfwf.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=8073 2. “Surprisingly, while Siberian or Amur tigers have long been thought to be the largest of the subspecies, measurements of tigers from the Russian Far East show they are currently no larger than the Bengal tigers of the Indian subcontinent [2] (D. Miquelle and J. Goodrich, unpublished data).” Melvin Sunquist, 2010. http://books.google.com.gt/books?id=XFIbjBEQolMC&pg=PA21&dq=%22Surprisingly,+while+Siberian+or+Amur+tigers+have+long+been+thought+to+be+the+largest+%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=aYMaT_2YIcW4tweR9P2-Cw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Surprisingly%2C%20while%20Siberian%20or%20Amur%20tigers%20have%20long%20been%20thought%20to%20be%20the%20largest%20%22&f=false 3. “Despite repeated claims in popular literature that members of the Amur population are the largest of all tigers, our measurements on more than fifty captured individuals suggest that their body size is similar to that of Bengal tigers”. Dale Miquelle, 2004. http://www.wcsrussia.org/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/Download.aspx?EntryId=3190&PortalId=32&DownloadMethod=attachment 4. “Siberian tigers are often considered the largest of the tiger sub-species, although they are in fact about the same size as the Bengal tiger.” WCS-Russia, 2012. http://www.wcsrussia.org/Wildlife/AmurTigers/Ecology/tabid/1467/language/en-US/Default.aspx 5. “However, recent data on tigers captured for telemetry studies in Nagarahole (India), Chitwan (Nepal) and in Sikhote-Alin (Russia) show that tigers from these three sites are all about the same size.” K. Ullas Karanth, 2003. http://books.google.com.gt/books?id=c44rAQAAMAAJ&q=%22show+that+tigers+from+these+three+sites+are+all+about+the+same+size.%22&dq=%22show+that+tigers+from+these+three+sites+are+all+about+the+same+size.%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=lhwMUZnUE4a89QSlsYGoCg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA The term Bengal tigers were initially given to the ones in the bengal area. Bengal is a geographical and ethno-linguistic region in South Asia. It lies in the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent, at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, and is dominated by the fertile Bengal delta. The region was politically divided in 1947 and today comprises the nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. This is nothing but Sunderbans fertile plains and mangrove forests. Later this term Bengal was adapted and used for all tigers in India, Nepal, Bhutan and the Indochinese tigers. So there is a high possibility that some of the smaller bengal tigers taken to captivity could very well come from Sunderbans and Indochinese. The Indochinese tiger was not considered a separate subspecies UNTIL 1968, when Dr. Mazak spend several months studying a captive tiger from Vietnam and many skulls, then he conclude that there were enough differences for put it in a new subspecies, which had been proved right with the studies of Lou et al. The sources were the document of Mazak and the book "Riding the Tiger". This is exactly the Bengal region  *This image is copyright of its original author Here is Bengal tiger term used for sunderbans tigers  *This image is copyright of its original author Regarding the 1000s of tigers accounted during begining of the project tiger in 1972-73 were total false and wrong. They used pugmark technique in most places for counting tigers which was a totally wrong method and it will give a very high escalated figures. In other places they just estimated tiger numbers without any reliable scientific method, when questioned they had no answer for how they arrived at that estimate. Example: In pugmark method you can show there are 100 tigers in a single reserve using the pugmarks of one or two tigers. The incident at Panna will be a living proof for this. But in reality the bengals were so heavily hunted, that only a fraction of those numbers really existed. In many reserves tigers were not seen for several years even after the reserves being established and protected. Even two or three decades ago we were able to see many resident males holding there territories for unusually long periods due to lack of competition. India with such a massive human population, tiger migrations were highly restricted. This resulted in several genetically isolated populations. Tigers from southern, central, northwest, northeast and northern are all genetically isolated from each other. Captive pure bengals outside India, Nepal and Bhutan are very few. Most of the private facilities, rescue centers, santuaries and even zoos can call there tigers bengals, but in reality they are nothing but crossbreds. Only reputable zoos and centers with species protection programs with full ancestry chart and studbook bengals can be considered reliable. Even these bengals may have low genetic diversity because India is not giving off tigers so easily for other countries to improve the gene pool. Now here are the records of wild amur tigers (modern and old)  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Now here are the records of wild bengal tigers (modern and old)  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Some captive Bengal weights  *This image is copyright of its original author Some captive amur weights  *This image is copyright of its original author I see some keep on repeating the term Amur tigers are the biggest it is said in many books and by biologists etc, but I like to ask where is the info or data to back that claim ??? Studying Biology doesnt make you an authority in the subject of size and weight of Amur and Bengals. They just repeat what they studied in the books. The ones who really worked in the field (capturing and weighing tigers) and Raw data and measurements are the authority When it comes to Bengals and amurs, the old hunting records and the modern scientific records all show that bengals were heavier animals than amurs. For any large amur (size and weight) hunted in the wild (historic or old or new doesnt matter) we have equally large and bigger bengals hunted in India, Nepal. The records shows this. For any enormous giant amur found in old hunting pictures we can match that easily with the giant bengals hunted in India, Nepal. Other than this we dont have much evidence to work with in regards to the size difference between amurs and bengals in the wild. Anything else is pure speculation and personal preference. When it comes to modern scientific records in the wild, its the bengals which were bigger. Another possible way to approach this is, look at the purebred and studbook amurs compare there size with wild bengals. Remember the captive amurs wont have the preybase problems and it will also have the luxury to carry more weight because its not necessary to be very fit to catch its prey. Meaning the captive amurs will definitely have an advantage of growing bigger due to better and easier nutritional availability than wild bengals. But for our surprise the results were not much different captive purebred amurs average around the same size as wild bengals. I guess it explains alot. When it comes to captivity most of the giant weights belongs to highly obese animals. These animals can never be the representative for size and weight of a particular species or subspecies. These animals can never survive in the wild with such high obseity and low fitness levels. But genuine non obese freak specimens do occur once in a while in captivity, but they are not the norms. Such freak specimens will also occur in the wild. But the difference is in the wild not all freak specimens will survive and reach maturity and breed. Because there are so many hurdles. Even if it makes to maturity, chances of it being seen by humans is slim. But in captivity such freaks are carefully reared and line bred to create more freaks. Here is a LARGE wild Bengal tiger, which can be compared to most of the freaks in captivity.  *This image is copyright of its original author Some of the latest info on wild bengals shows subadult males (2.5 years+) are surpassing 225kg scales easily (Bheema, Poochkanta, BMW's son, T24, Bittu, Srinivas, Jaichand etc). That should give us an idea on Modern Bengal size. I hope all this info is helpful Thanks
That's unfair comparison. 15 captive Bengal tigers vs 37 captive Amur tigers? The Amur is still only 0.4 kg lighter with unfair comparison. The Amur tiger is still heavier in maximum weight. There is more Amur tiger with above 200 kg in that chart anyway.
And I think someone in here keep writing "there is no pure Bengal." There is no way size can be decreased unless it was mixed with the Sumatran and the Malayan tigers. The most important fact to comparing size in wild. Let's not forget extremely low prey biomass in Russian Far East and other places in Asia. In the wild the prey base in Russia is not abundant enough for the Amur tigers to realize their full potential. Prey is more scattered and the Amur tigers need huge territories to capture sufficient food, so much more energy is expended in the food quest. I think the Assam state tigers are living in extremely high prey biomass habitat. I would like to see the Amur tiger size when they're living in high prey biomass area after 20 years.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
@Master Chief
"1. Show me your stud books that there is no pure Bengal tiger in this world beside in India zoo. I don't need to hear anything. Just show me the stud book saying that there is no pure breed Bengals with genetic analysis." You show me the stud books of verified Bengal Tiger weights in captivity with their body measurements. "2. How come their size is smaller just because it was mixed? Their size can't be decreased unless it was mixed with the Sumatran tiger and the Malayan tiger. Mixed breed of Great Dane and Mastiff dogs are smaller than their parents? Not even true. They are about the same size as other Great Dane and Mastiff dogs." When did I say hybrids were smaller? In fact, hybrids compare nicely to pure bred Amurs, showing that it doesn't matter if you mix either genes, both can produce larger or smaller individuals. Also, it completely depends on what you mix breed a Mastiff with, if it's mixed with a lab or Shepard, it certainly will be smaller, than if it's mixed with another larger breed. But I'm not sure where you got this point, it was never brought up. "4. You said prey availability doesn't matter? Have you studied biology in college? Food intake (prey availability) is absolutely does matter unless you are comparing completely different species like domestic cat vs big cats or songbirds vs eagles. When did I say prey availability "doesn't matter?" It's going around in circles with you, Post #327 already covered this. "This is the same for tiger size. There is almost no food intake in Russian Far East, Northeast China, and Korea due to long development and war since late 1800. Put those Assam Bengal tiger cubs and mothers in low prey density area. Check every single Asam Bengal tiger cubs and their generations could grow huge size and weight after 20 years.. " And there was a time when prey was abundant and their habitat was unmolested yet they showed no larger size than their bengal cousins. You can also say the exact same thing for bengals up until recently, they suffered from just as much genetic bottlenecking, prey depletion and deforestation. "How come people were smaller and shorter back in 100 years ago. 6 ft was considered as a giant height pre-1940 for both American and European. Why? Because many people couldn't eat a lot. It's 100% different today. Many Europeans and White Americans are easily 5'10'' these days. My mom is Austrian. Average man height is 5'10'' to 5'11'' in Austria. 6 ft is common height when I was in Austria. But 6 ft is pretty tall height if you are comparing to old people (50 to 90 years old ). It was around 5'7'' to 5'8'' (men) in early 1900." The tallest people in the world are Europeans (dutch are the tallest) and Africans, Asians are shorter but have been making greater jumps as of late. But this has numerous factors involved, one of course is nutrition. We now have nutrient rich food at our fingertips (literally) we work less hard than ever and famine is less of a problem than it has ever been prior. Another factor is genetics, height is 80% hereditary, taller height is also an attractant to most people, so they tend to seek taller over shorter, which means selective breeding over the years have also contributed to taller people. Nice read here http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...dards.html Back to Tigers: Can we attribute the Amurs modern shrinkage to lack of prey base and habitat? Of course we can, the weights they show now are seldom over 200kg compared to early 1900's where their averages were comparable with modern Bengals. But their body dimensions overlaps perfectly with Bengals, their body mass, not so much. They put on fat easier than bengals (allegedly) and thus they may seem larger but muscle weighs more than fat, a bengal living in a warmer environment who has similar body dimensions should weigh more, they are more muscle packed with less fat. 
In the informative and valuable tables kindly provided by Apollo about body mass of captive Amur and Bengal tigers is written that measured male captive Bengal tigers were > 4 years old, but measured Amur tigers were only > 3 years old ...
 (04-22-2014, 01:12 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:GuateGojira\ dateline='\'1398109807' Wrote:GrizzlyClaws dateline='\'1398108015' Wrote:Thanks for the clarification, so the 6.7 cm canines are from a captive and then, we can compare it only with those of captive tigers. @GrizzlyClaws Thanks for your valuable information of the size of upper canines of giant specimens of Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis. (04-22-2014, 06:04 AM)peter Wrote:GuateGojira\ dateline='\'1398119267' Wrote: Oh yes, some captive tigers do have 17 inches skulls, however most of the owners most destroy all bones by law, in order to show that they don't support the illegal trade or just because they don't have space to keep them. @peter Great information and pictures   (04-05-2017, 12:45 PM)Master Chief Wrote: This is you? https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raul_Valvert Regarding your complains: 1. This is the second time that you attack me because I am not a Biologist, but again, you don't present any evidence regarding the point of the "size", which is the main one. @Apollo made a great point here, and I quote him: "Studying Biology doesn't make you an authority in the subject of size and weight of Amur and Bengals. They just repeat what they studied in the books. The ones who really worked in the field (capturing and weighing tigers) and Raw data and measurements are the authority" Following this point, ALL my documents, images and statements follow the studies of THESE people that have actually worked with tigers in the wild. So, again, what is the point in arguing against the "title" of a person? Also, if you study my career, you MUST know the same methods of investigation that Biologist or any other professional use: the Scientific Method, statistical formulas and sampling, etc. etc. etc. Besides, you don't need to be a "rocket science expert" to understand and interpret the results of all the studies of the people that I quoted in this topic. I hope this clarify my point ones for all. 2. Your claim on the "virgata vs altaica" issue is useless. In fact, Dr Driscoll and his team in 2009 were the first ones in showing that the Caspian and the Amur tigers are the same based in genetic studies (probably you already read this document, don't you?). After that, following studies have showed that the affinity of these two populations are true and clear, for example Wilting et al. (2015) proved again that these populations are one and the same and classified them as a single management unit and finally Cooper et al. (2016) showed that all mainland tigers are probably a single subspecies with the same origin and that human interference was the only reason of the fragmentation of the tiger population. I guess that you have already read these documents too.... So, following Driscoll at al. (2009), the Amur tigers should be classified as "virgata". It is interesting that you mention the rules of Taxonomy, however you ignore the fact that "virgata" was established in 1815 and "altaica" until 1844 (both descriptions based in a single specimen, by the way), so Virgata is first and should kept like the main one, BUT all this is already explained in the document of Dr Driscoll, so I "guess" that you probably have not read it yet, I kindly advise you to check the last pages of this paper. However, even this "classic" classification of 8 or 9 subspecies is going to change soon, especially when the evidence provided by the new genetic and morphological studies shows that the morphological differences are just clinal and that the genetic studies shows only TWO subspecies. In this case the Amur tiger is going to be reclassified in the group of the Mainland subspecies (P. t. tigris), but all depends if the "Science of the tiger" is going to follow the "real science" or will stay with the old "political complains". If you want to argue about the "subspecies" issue, I suggest to read all the documents related to this point first, later to read all my posts regarding this point, and just after that, I invite you to continue with this discussion. 3. Actually, prey base in the old days at Russia was higher that in modern days and indeed produced larger specimens. However, these few reliable specimens do not show a great difference with the Bengal tigers in the past and the present. The skulls are about the size, the size and weight is about the same, so there is no difference in the past and the present between these populations. Now, in the zoos, there is NEVER the same conditions. It depends of the zoo and the managers, the amount of food, the climate and the metabolism of the specimens. Definitely an Indian zoo is not going to give the same food and care than an European or USA zoo, and the comparison in captivity is also unfair, as the only pure Bengal tigers are in India while the pure Amur tigers are in USA and Europe, among others first world zoos. 4. My conclusion is that the Amur and Bengal tigers are and were of the same size (both are the largest cats of the modern days), and like I have showed before, the "journals" still quote the same old mantra despite the results of the scientific studies. Read the email of Dr Goodrich again. I hope that in your next post, you can actually show information, data or something to support your claims, not only personal attacks and the excuse that "all the books said this....", ok? Greetings. (05-04-2015, 09:41 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: I will post this old table again: @GrizzlyClaws @tigerluver @GuateGojira I never imagined that the live animal was a lot Bigger than the Skeletons, for example the larger Siberian Tiger on the table measured 206 cm head and body length and its skeleton measure 163,6 cm long. 
Is it true that siberian tigers used to be very big or at least a lot bigger before the downfall of the siberian tiger population in around the 1940s? What is their current average weight (male and female)?
I want to discuss why they have gotten smaller. Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_tiger says: "Their reduced weight as compared to historical Siberian tigers may be due to a combination of causes: when captured, they were usually sick or injured and involved in a conflict situation with people." Ref: 10. Prey is less abundant i can see due to hunting of prey by humans, and that pine nuts and acorn etc is rare in the wild and they have to feed animals in the wild to make sure siberian tigers dont starve too: https://www.rt.com/news/321757-winter-ru...rs-starve/ 
Yes that may be the reason. But according to current study they are equal to Bengal tiger
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