ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[peter]

A FEW VIDEOS

1 - 'Tiger and Rhino' - Uploaded on YouTube by Wild India Safaris

This video is about the interaction between a male Indian tiger and what seems to be an adult rhino. It's of interest, not because of what you see, but because of what you don't see. Watch it a few times to find out more: 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAJSaWultMM

2 - 'Incredible Russian Wildlife - Siberian Tigers & Others' (09:17) - Uploaded on YouTube by Bohai Tours

All videos uploaded by Bohai Tours are of interest, because they enable you to see animals seldom discussed at forums. In the first 15 seconds, you see a male tiger walking on a well kept lawn close to a wooden house somewhere in the Russian Far East. When the tiger sniffs the tree and leaves, you can see him in full glory:     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATPthtaeiNs&t=13s

3 - 'The rarest Big Cats of Siberia & Ussuri Taiga! Listen to their Roars!' (08:06) - Uploaded on YouTube by Bohai Tours

The video shows a tigress and her cubs and, at about 05:00, a male. Judging from the relative size of his head, he most probably is fully grown:  
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBnXJbTnUx4

4 - 'AMBA - The Siberian tiger - A Short Wildlife Film' (03:38) - Alor Leonel

This wildlife film, although short, is special. Read the liner notes for more information. If you do, you'll find a link to an article written by Ekaterina Maksimova about Alor Leonel and his quest to see a wild Amur tiger. The title of the article published in the 'Komsomolskaya Pravda - Far East' on November 19, 2024 is 'My heart has never beaten so fast': Foreigner approaches tiger at dangerous distance and fullfills his dream' .  

The article, a nice read, has different photographs. One of them shows Alor and the tiger in the video. Although the tiger is a young adult male, it's tall and long. The photograph, by the way, is from Alor Leonel:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The (relatively) large size of this (young adult) male is a bit surprising. More than once, I noticed wild Amur tigers are a bit larger than I assumed. It raises the question if the (accepted) information about the dimensions and the weight of wild Amur tigers really covers it. 

I've seen my share of captive male Amur tigers. My guess is they ranged between 155-265 kg, averaging well over 200 kg. In the table I posted about a year ago (this thread), captive adult males (and a few young adults) ranged between 141-320 kg. The average of 61 was 220-225 kg. 

In a (Chinese) paper I posted, it was concluded young adult males in two Chinese facilities reached their largest size at 3-4 years of age. After 4, they start to lose the fat typical for many young adult captive tigers. In the period they're 4-6 years of age, not much seems to change. When they reach 6-7 years of age, however, they start growing again. They add a few more inches in total length and their muscles change in that they seem to become more 'dense'. Their bones also seem to increase in size and they start to 'fill up'. 

This is what I noticed as well when we carried captive tigers (of different subspecies) in the facility I often visited in the period 1990-2010. A 200 kg (442 pounds) young adult male Amur tiger, for this reason, is (and 'feels') very different from a 200 kg male Amur tiger in, or just past, his prime. Compared to young adult males, prime males often have (relatively) larger legs, larger paws, larger necks and bigger heads. Their skulls (referring to measurements) often are a bit wider and heavier. The male tiger at the start of the second video is an example of a mature wild male Amur tiger.   

If the young adult male in the video reaches his prime, chances are he'll be quite close to the largest captive males I've seen. Meaning the information recently provided by a very experienced Russian biologist, who said adult males average 220-240 kg, could be closer than we assumed:        

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE4MtPJEmuA Reply