Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur

[Pckts]

(05-15-2014, 02:27 PM)'Apollo' Wrote:

(05-14-2014, 09:38 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: The only female is the one on the far left next to Caesar and she is the same family as the other 3 males, they where his first tigers and bought at the same time. The bengals may or may not be full grown, but the siberians are younger than they are. I believe the siberians are age of 3 or so when first introduced to the bengals.
The 3rd tiger from the left is Prince and the 2nd tiger from the right is Cambodge (largest siberian) and also the tiger that attempted to attack prince for many days until finally taught not to.



 

If the amurs are 3 years old and the Bengals are older than that (so the 4 bengal tigers should be adults or closer to adulthood), then there should be a greater sexual dimorphism in size between the 3 male and 1 female bengal tigers. But it is not the case when you see the picture.
Since those 4 tigers are adults and the 3 males and 1 female are closer in size to each other. I think its highly possible that these tigers are either smaller subspecies or the unique sunderbans tigers (smaller tigers show lesser sexual dimorphism in size)

*This image is copyright of its original author

(05-14-2014, 09:42 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: Also one note, he says that the bengals where brought from "Bengal"
So he doesn't know what type of sub species they are, obviously. This could also be the reason that the popular beliefe that the Siberian is the largest cat, because most of these circus trainers probably never had a Pure wild bengal from somewhere like Assam or Panna etc.... As well as siberians being able to put fat on easier than bengals and their massive furry coats all lead to the old popular idea that siberians are larger than bengals, which after lots of research seems to be the opposite.



 

Since he says "BENGAL"

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 exactly the Bengal region

*This image is copyright of its original author

This is nothing but Sunderbans fertile plains and mangrove forests.
So these 4 Bengals could be sunderbans tigers (bengal tigers from sunderbans).
This could explain the size difference between those bengals and amurs.

 

 

 

Definite possibility.

Now onto your sexual dimorphism argument, which is pointless because this is already confirmed by the man who bought and trained them. And each individual cat has its own slightly different physical traits.
Alex Lacy, a famous and and well know circus trainer in brittan for Ringley Bros (before they banned big cats in the circus) said that his male and female bengals show almost no sexual dimorphism and females get as large as 500lbs and as large as his males. I have also heard this from another trainer, forget his name. While in the wild it is obvious that huge sexual dimorphism exists, there are still many cases of massive tigress who are larger than some males. There is a 500lb fit tigress in Australia. Larger than lots of male tigers. I think there are actually 2 500lb tigress, but not possitive.

Now onto Richard point.
Tigers from Assam or Nepal, are the largest known tigers. They are heavier than any others measured, past or present. Even their physical dimensions are larger than any other tigers. Now take into account how all tigers were classified as Bengal (except siberian and sumatran) and the fact that many Tiger subspecies are much smaller than tigers from other places. If you look at captive weights for Bengals, they are every bit as heavy as captive weights for Siberians, now a days. Obviously the 800 lb monsters are in their own class but we don't know body lenght, shoulder height, chest and limb girth, etc. So we actually don't even know if they are truly larger than the many huge Bengals that are already measured. And that would be the only way to tell if Captive siberians are indeed larger than their wild relatives or the Bengals that are being measured.
  Reply