Comparing big cats - differences/changes with time

[Ashutosh]

@BlakeW39, everything you mentioned about jaguars from adapting to surroundings, developing a wide range of diet, to becoming more aquatic are all applicable to tigers of marshy ecosystems (unfortunately only Sunderbans is a marshy ecosystem home to tigers at present times but this was not the case only 150 years ago as Mangrove and marshy ecosystems all across SouthEast Asia had tiger presence covering over 150,000 sq.km)

So, when you say “I think jaguars evolved to have the most generalized diet of big cats. This is because the tropical rainforest they've adapted for uniquely biodiverse but yet lacks the large herbivores found elsewhere” 
That is exactly the case for Sunderban tiger. A tiger in Sunderbans can eat anything from a boar to a monitor lizard. They even eat bee larvae! alongside snakes like cobras and even rarely king cobras. 20% of their diet is made up of turtles, crab and fish. What a lot of people don’t know is till a 100 years ago, their biggest prey was the Javan Rhino. Their varied diet and lack of big game has pushed their average weight down (opposite of jaguars).

The tigers in Sunderbans were radio collared and it was found out that they swam 29 kilometres in a day shuttling from island to island. So, the claim of jaguars being most aquatic is also debatable one. Let us not forget tigers have evolved webbed toes like ducks to displace a large amount of water when swimming using their enormous paws.

What I am trying to say is big cats are an evolutionary success story and their adaptability is absolutely fascinating but not any one species is that different from another in evolving to their surroundings. The one thing I am miffed about is how humans and their activities robbed us of so many more potential opportunities to study this whole extraordinary family.  Reply