Amur Tigers

[brotherbear]

Great Soul of Siberia by Sooyong Park.
Sometimes I see the traces tigers leave by crouching gingerly in the snow. Tigers often sit in this sphinx-like position - hind legs tucked in, front paws stretched out neatly in front - right before they pounce on prey or when they are alert. The sphinx position with the tiger's hips rotated to the side is called a half-sphinx. A tiger lies in the half-sphinx position when it's resting. If there is ice in the spot where the tiger was lying, it means the snow melted from the tiger's body heat and froze again when it left; in other words, the tiger had taken a long break or a nap in that spot. 
We can use these traces to measure the length of a tiger's body. When measuring body lengths using traces of sphinx or half-sphinx positions, we use the length between the base of the tiger's tail and the chest. We do not include parts that can be tucked in, such as the legs or the tail, as part of the body length. If we find a trace where the tiger had lain down completely, we measure from its head to its bottom.
According to 'The Terrestrial Mammals of the Far East of USSR ( 1984 )',an adult male tiger's average body length ( from head to tip of tail ) is 3 meters and its average body weight 200 kilograms. The largest ever recorded, in the 'Russian Red Book ( 1987 )', was 4.17 meters long and weighed 350 kilograms. The Bengal tigers that live in India, Nepal, or Bangladesh, on the other hand, are on average 2.5 meters long and weigh 150 kilograms. The harsh climate and environment made the Siberian tiger evolve in different ways than tigers in tropical regions. To reduce body heat loss, the Siberian tiger became larger to reduce its volume-to-surface ratio. Reply