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Amur Tigers
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Zov Tigra National Park (Roar of the Tiger), established in 2008, offers both adventure and nature observation opportunities. The highest mountains of Primorye (Mt. Oblachnaya 6,108 ft and Mt. Snezhnaya 5,524 ft), waterfalls, and crystal clear water give the Park incredible attractiveness. The 200,000-acre park protects the Amur tiger habitat while simultaneously allowing for nature tourism. The breadth of natural opportunities concentrated in the Park have no analogues in any other protected area of the Russian Far East: as many as 57 rare and endangered plant species and six mammals, listed in the Red Book, inhabit the protected area. The most beautiful river of Primorye and seven waterfalls are located in the Park. The Ussuri River, the longest and mightiest one in Primorye, begins here. Tourists are always amazed by the size of cedar—the trees are often more than 300 years old.
In late 2013, two tiger cubs were born at Zov Tigra National Park. The park’s staff learnt the news in early 2014 when they found traces of the babies during a route examination. In all, there are 10 tigers at the national park now. Some great Images of Amur (Siberian) Tigers from there  *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  *This image is copyright of its original author
The 100k years old Alaskan tiger?
What type of tiger is this? Amur or Wanhsien http://visitcryptoville.com/2014/10/10/a...the-north/ How about the genetic continuation in North China from the Pleistocene era to the Holocene era? Could the modern Amur tiger be a mixture between the Caspian tiger and the surviving Wanhsien tiger in North China? 
The Wahnsien tiger in itself probably went extinct via evolution before 100k years ago considering the Ngandong tiger may have evolved as earlier as 500,000 years ago looking at dating of the Ngandong faunal level (referenced in the article). Thus, I don't think the Wahnsien hybridized with any modern forms, rather just gave rise to them. At the same token, tigers seem to have evolved barely throughout the ages, with the only major difference being size, relative robusticity (the Ngandong tiger blows the other subspecies out of water here, with post-Ngandong subspecies being a bit more robust than pre-Ngandong forms), the odd digits, and skull variation. These changes are more adaptive to the situation (prey size and density varied across Asia) and genetic chance in my opinion (population geographically isolate, by chance you end up with a certain omnipresent trait). All these slight differences are shown in the tiger's modern subspeciation, evidence to my previous point.
The Caspian-Amur population probably just expanded over into the Strait and then for whatever reason failed to stay and expand further. Why the lion clad got there and expanded and tigers couldn't, not sure. For one, the lion clad got there much earlier, environment may have effected the tigers' attempted expansion much later. Habitat is a big factor as well, as stated numerous times, tigers aren't found as much in the open. Morphologically, tigers are bulky for their frame, not good for covering large distances of open grassland. Though, the modern Amur tiger is showing evolution of the frame. This form has seriously lost in bulk to equal that of the lion relative bulkiness. My explanation to this phenomenon is how much more cursorial modern Amur tigers are forced to be due, with their huge territories. Finally, maybe the tigers that made it Alaska were not genetically adept, as theoretically, the weaker specimens will get pushed out of the home range. The Strait would have been submerged before the genetically superior specimens could get to Alaska. I wish there was a more concrete article on the tiger specimens in Alaska. As of now, there are more of "he said, she said" sources lying around. 
I am agree with Tigerluver here. The Wanhsien tiger per se get extinct at about 100,000 years ago, but all modern mainland (and Sonda, at a great level) tigers descend from it. Now, the last population of Wanhsien tigers was that of the north Indochina after the great Toba eruption. Since then, there were no other tiger populations, except those from Indonesia. The greatest evidence is the lack of genetic differences between tiger populations and so, after about 75,000 years ago, those first Indochina tigers were the first Holocene-modern tigers and began they expansion to all mainland. In this case, Amur tigers are just Caspian tigers that traveled to the east and that developed they own characteristics, nothing more.
In the case of the Alaska tigers, based on the date, they should be a northern population of Wanhsien tigers, not modern ones. Interestingly, they were very rare, based on fossils, and this can be explained by the fact that Beringia was more like a steppe habitat, which is not the best one for tigers. In fact, Kitchener & Yamaguchi (2010) claim that based on they ecological models, there should not be tigers in Beringia, the habitat was not suitable for them, with only 50% of probabilities. Even worst, some of the fossils from "tigers" in Alaska were proved to be Panthera spelaea, based on DNA (Barnett et al., 2009). In this case, although the theory of Herrington (1986) has not been disproved, we most accept the fact that Beringia tigers were probably exceptional sightings and not the norm, as they are incredible rare among fossils, in comparison with other animals of the Pleistocene fauna of the area.
Incredible, no genetic continuation between the Pleistocene tigers (pre 100k years old) and the modern tigers in northern China.
Just like there is no genetic continuation between the Pleistocene brown bears and the modern brown bears in North America. But indeed, without the human factors, the tiger species seems to be much more resilient than we thought.
Exactly, no genetic continuation. According with Luo et al. (2004) and Luo et al. (2010), all the tiger varieties simple disappeared at the 75,000 - 108,000 years event. It was a bottleneck that all mammals (and probably other animals too) suffered, even humans. After the disaster of Toba, that little population of north Indochina tigers probably survived just because it was not too north to suffer the hard winters provoked by the ashes and it was not to south to be wiped out by the eruption and its direct effects. It will be interesting to know what happened to other species in the Indo-malayan area, like elephants or gaurs, to mention a few.
It will be also important to know how many time it takes to the animals to repopulate the area (modern Sumatra), after all, according with the models in Kitchener & Yamaguchi (2010), mainland and Sunda shelf were again interconnected at about 20,000 years ago, and remained like that until the end of the ice age (12,000 years ago). That time is important to understand IF at some point, the "new" mainland tiger population, some how, intermixed with the survival population of Ngandong tigers in Java (which originated the modern Java-Bali tigers) in the Sunda shelf, OR if they kept separated and no other intermix occurred, apart from that in Sumatra. 
From measurements I am reading throughout this topic, there could not be any overwhelming difference in the size comparison between the Amur tiger and the Ussuri brown bear. Nowhere else in the world are there two such powerful predators in the same location. I know and understand the weight difference, but how do they compare ( average mature males ) in height, length, chest girth, neck girth, etc. ?
I will edit and add; on post #37 by GuateGojira, according to the chart, a mature male Ussuri brown bear of this particular region averages 595 pounds ( 270 kg ) and the female roughly 320 pounds ( 145 kg ). There is a greater difference in size between the sexes in brown bears than in tigers. It appears to me that the brown bear female and the female Amur tiger are very near weight-parity. 
Wanna see a place where it's just pictures of wild siberian tigers. That's kinda hard to find a page where you can see pictures of my favorite subspicies of tiger in the wild! please post images if You have any
This gotta be The most beautiful creature on our planet, alongside a male leopard from Krüger!
 *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
What a WOW factor!! Stunnig male tiger
 *This image is copyright of its original author
Some very impressive looking males! Seems to rival any bengals and male lions IMO
 *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  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author what a stunnig specimen this guy looks like. *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  *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  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author |
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