Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers

[GuateGojira]

(10-06-2022, 11:52 PM)Khan85 Wrote: 270

Ok, thank you. So it is what it is, 270 kg, period.

Now, for all the other posters, are you serious guys? Are you creating 4 pages or useless post discussing if a dead animal weighed or not what the official paper says? We did not measured the animal, they did, and if the paper says what it says, why we need to put it in doubht?

Let me tell you this experience, I was checking the comments of a real expert, the Paleontologist Roberto Diaz (Paleos) and he was explaning that measurements are not something of real interest, that they focus more on the ecology, evolution, relations and other things, when they study fossils. That is why many of the estimations in scientific papers are in ranges, as the methods of estimation are not 100% perfect. The only thing that is reliable are the measurements of the bones, as the experts actually measure them, but even then they are not 100% "official", as sometimes it happen that two people may use a different method and get different results, even in bones! So, that is why there are not "official" measurements of an animal, especially when we have only one specimen (I will like to go deeper on this in another post).

Now, why am I taking the time to mention this? Well, because modern Biologist record the body measurements and weights in the best form possible, but there is not an standard protocol. Oh yes, Dr Karanth says that there is, you may say, but actually that is just the series of measurements, but not about the method. Also, nobody care if the animal had or not stomach content, that is something that we should already know, and very few people atually adjust them. The problem is when people, like us, think that all of them follow the same method, and that is an error, for example we can't compare the Hobatere lions with the Chitwan tigers in body size as the methods are completelly different, or the lions in Etosha with the lions in Kruger as the body mass is not adjusted in one of them. So here we can see that the differences in the recording methods made significant differences, and the only thing that we can do is to dig in the methods as much as we can, and compare between the similar ones.

Other thing, there is no standard in Biology, animals are living things and are not simetrical, just like in humans, there are short but heavy persons, and tall but light persons, and the same happen with tigers. We have tigers of over 200 cm in head-body that weight less than 230 kg, and other specimens of a little over 190 cm that surpass that figure. So a male Bengal tiger of 208 cm in head-body "straight" can weight as low as 220 kg and as high as 270 kg with no problem, depending of its health status, age, and of course its stomach content. In this case this entire debate is futile and there is no reason to insult each other, or try to misstreat the idea of the other using harsh arguments. The truth is that we know how the tigers are measured in India, we have documents and even videos and all are taken over the curves following a straight line when possible. About the weight, it is a real feat that they actually took the time to weight it, but I did remember scientists weighing a carcass of a decompose lion in Gir, and also Dr Karanth weighed carcasses of dead gaur (some of them about 1,000 kg), so it is not crazy that this huge and famous tiger was actually weighed. On the measurements, probably some of them are smaller than in life, remember that at that point the rigor mortis was already affecting the carcass.

In conclution, there is no form to deny that the measurements and the weight are real, the official document is available and we know the methods. There is no point in discussing if an animal of "x" size can weight "x" kg, as the variation on a species and in the same sex is big in any animal species, and I have saw litterally hundreds of measurements and weights of so many animals that vouch my conclution. The best thing that we can do is to take the measurments availble and quote them as they are, simple. I will do it I am not going to waste time is discussing something that to Biologist is not even relevant. In fact, we should be thankfull with Khan85 that actually took the time to get those documents and share it with us, I personally really appreaciate them and I am going to use them with no hesitate. My two cents on this, and I hope that this will clarify my point of view on this.

By the way, I have new information about the Nagarahole tigers captured by Dr Karanth, and just like the tigers from Panna, it is not what we expected and many things are going to change.  Reply