DNA samples of Bengal tigers polluted by genes of the Siberian Tiger

[GuateGojira]

@sanjay, those "100 books" and "experts" only repeat the same mantra without any evidence. Check what the TRUE tiger experts say about the issue:

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?Sect...ENTID=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show they are currently  no larger than the Bengal tigers of the Indian subcontinent [2] (D. Miquelle and J. Goodrich, unpublished data).”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=XFIb...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/...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/AmurTi...fault.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=c44r...CCsQ6AEwAA

As you can see, the official confirmation is that both Bengal and Amur tigers are/were of the same size, and this is the people that have actually captured and measured tigers in the field. Mazák was an expert, yes, but his conclusions are incorrect, like I said, the largest captive Amur tigers that he mentioned measured just like the largest wild Bengal tigers recorded. The largest Manchurian skull that he measured (383 mm) is slightly smaller than the largest skull recorded by Sterndale (386 mm) and the largest skull from Nepal (381 mm) was only 2 mm shorter (McDougal, 1977). Evidence show that these two groups are of the same size and represent the maximum dimensions that a Holocene tiger can reach.

Although modern Amur tigers are lighter, older ones weighed the same than the largest Bengal tigers. Interestingly, Bengal tigers have not changed too much in over 100 years, only those of the Sundarbans, which are dwarfs because of they poor habitat and prey density and size.

From my conclusions, both tigers subspecies/groups measured c.190 cm in head-body, c.100 cm shoulder height and c.200 kg on average (taking in count old and modern records, including also Sundarbans specimens). In maximum figures, both reach c.220 cm in head-body (330 cm total length), c.110 cm shoulder height and a weight of c.300 kg.

@Kingtheropod, in fact, I have found that there is no evidence to say that northern tigers were longer than southern tigers, that is an old idea from hunters. In fact, check that the longest tigers came from Central and Southern India, where there are records of tigers over 310 cm "between pegs". Hewett and the Maharaja of Cooch Behar presented records of tigers up to 318 cm "over curves", which means that they longest tigers were barely about 300 - 305 cm "between pegs". About the heaviest specimens, the highest figures from Hewett, Cooch Behar and the Nepalese region are between 240-260 kg, but if we search the records from Central India, we found similar figures (top of 256 kg, bottomed two scales) and although the heaviest tiger that I have found in southern India was of 227 kg "empty", peter showed that Burton weighed a tiger that bottomed a scale of 500 lb but he estimated that this male could weight up to 550 lb (250 kg).

It seems that independently of the region, all mainland tigers can reach 310 cm in total length and between 240-260 kg in maximum figures. Only the Sundarbands tigers (and probably also Naga Hills, but the sample is too small) are out of these figures.
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