Amur Tigers

[brotherbear]

Great Soul of Siberia by Sooyong Park.
On the Dipiko mountain ridge was an unusual area where a large puddle had formed. I had found many wild boar tracks around the puddle recently. The wild boars had taken a mud bath in the puddle and then rubbed their shoulders against nearby oak trunks. Some mud traces on the trunks came all the way up to my chest. 
To identify an individual tiger, it's easier to first divide by gender and then into categories such as juveniles, sub-adults, and adults. Tigers under the age of one are juveniles, aged one to three are sub-adults, and over three are adults. Sub-adult tigers are roughly the same size as adult tigers, making it difficult to tell them apart just by looking at them. Sub-adults are large but not completely independent, which means they have less experience. They're also sexually inactive and mentally immature. 
The most important factor in telling individual tigers apart is their prints, specifically the width of the ball of their paws. This is because tigers have more highly evolved paws than other animals do. The width of the front paws is especially telling. Tiger's front paws are larger and have a greater width-to-length ratio than their hind ones. 
A mature tiger has an average paw width of ten and a half to thirteen centimeters. The widest, thirteen centimeters, usually belongs to the Great King in his prime. There are past records of wider paws, but hardly any paws have reached even thirteen centimeters in recent years. 
A mature female tiger has an average paw width of eight and a half to ten centimeters. An unofficial record shows that a female tiger paw can be up to eleven centimeters wide, but within the small population we have today, the widths hardly ever reach ten centimeters. 
If the front paw width is less than eight centimeters, the print definitely belongs to a juvenile, and if the width exceeds ten and a half, it's definitely an adult male. But if the measurements are anythingfrom eight and a half to ten centimeters, it could be a mature female or a sub-adult male. With these cases, we determine the sex by factoring in their stride and the length of their bodies. Because tigers' paws develope faster than their bodies, a sub-adult tiger's paws may be roughly the same as an adult's, but its steps and body length will be shorter. Reply