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

[Apollo]

I like to repost one of my oldpost with more info.

Hi Everyone,

I like to post some info on Amurs and Bengals.
Some of the data is borrowed from @GuateGojira and @Kingtheropod , so the credits for those info should goto them.



Here are some remarks from some of the leading expert scientists in the field,

 
1. “Contrary to earlier perceptions, measurements obtained from tigers captured for radiotelemetry studies in the Indian subcontinent (Sunquist 1981; Karanth, unpubl. data) show that they are not smaller than tigers captured in the Russian Far East (Dale Miquelle and John Goodrich, unpubl. data).” K. Ullas Karanth, 2003.
http://www.nfwf.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=8073
 
2. “Surprisingly, while Siberian or Amur tigers have long been thought to be the largest of the subspecies, measurements of tigers from the Russian Far East show they are currently  no larger than the Bengal tigers of the Indian subcontinent [2] (D. Miquelle and J. Goodrich, unpublished data).” Melvin Sunquist, 2010.
http://books.google.com.gt/books?id=XFIbjBEQolMC&pg=PA21&dq=%22Surprisingly,+while+Siberian+or+Amur+tigers+have+long+been+thought+to+be+the+largest+%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=aYMaT_2YIcW4tweR9P2-Cw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Surprisingly%2C%20while%20Siberian%20or%20Amur%20tigers%20have%20long%20been%20thought%20to%20be%20the%20largest%20%22&f=false
 
3. “Despite repeated claims in popular literature that members of the Amur population are the largest of all tigers, our measurements on more than fifty captured individuals suggest that their body size is similar to that of Bengal tigers”. Dale Miquelle, 2004.
http://www.wcsrussia.org/DesktopModules/Bring2mind/DMX/Download.aspx?EntryId=3190&PortalId=32&DownloadMethod=attachment
 
4. “Siberian tigers are often considered the largest of the tiger sub-species, although they are in fact about the same size as the Bengal tiger.” WCS-Russia, 2012.
http://www.wcsrussia.org/Wildlife/AmurTigers/Ecology/tabid/1467/language/en-US/Default.aspx
 
5. “However, recent data on tigers captured for telemetry studies in Nagarahole (India), Chitwan (Nepal) and in Sikhote-Alin (Russia) show that tigers from these three sites are all about the same size.” K. Ullas Karanth, 2003.
http://books.google.com.gt/books?id=c44rAQAAMAAJ&q=%22show+that+tigers+from+these+three+sites+are+all+about+the+same+size.%22&dq=%22show+that+tigers+from+these+three+sites+are+all+about+the+same+size.%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=lhwMUZnUE4a89QSlsYGoCg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA
 



The term Bengal tigers were initially given to the ones in the bengal area. 
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 nothing but Sunderbans fertile plains and mangrove forests.
Later this term Bengal was adapted and used for all tigers in India, Nepal, Bhutan and the Indochinese tigers.
So there is a high possibility that some of the smaller bengal tigers taken to captivity could very well come from Sunderbans and Indochinese.

The Indochinese tiger was not considered a separate subspecies UNTIL 1968, when Dr. Mazak spend several months studying a captive tiger from Vietnam and many skulls, then he conclude that there were enough differences for put it in a new subspecies, which had been proved right with the studies of Lou et al. The sources were the document of Mazak and the book "Riding the Tiger".


This is exactly the Bengal region

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Here is Bengal tiger term used for sunderbans tigers

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Regarding the 1000s of tigers accounted during begining of the project tiger in 1972-73 were total false and wrong. They used pugmark technique in most places for counting tigers which was a totally wrong method and it will give a very high escalated figures. In other places they just estimated tiger numbers without any reliable scientific method, when questioned they had no answer for how they arrived at that estimate.

Example: In pugmark method you can show there are 100 tigers in a single reserve using the pugmarks of one or two tigers. The incident at Panna will be a living proof for this.

But in reality the bengals were so heavily hunted, that only a fraction of those numbers really existed. In many reserves tigers were not seen for several years even after the reserves being established and protected. Even two or three decades ago we were able to see many resident males holding there territories for unusually long periods due to lack of competition.

India with such a massive human population, tiger migrations were highly restricted. This resulted in several genetically isolated populations. Tigers from southern, central, northwest, northeast and northern are all genetically isolated from each other.


Captive pure bengals outside India, Nepal and Bhutan are very few.
Most of the private facilities, rescue centers, santuaries and even zoos can call there tigers bengals, but in reality they are nothing but crossbreds.
Only reputable zoos and centers with species protection programs with full ancestry chart and studbook bengals can be considered reliable.
Even these bengals may have low genetic diversity because India is not giving off tigers so easily for other countries to improve the gene pool.


Now here are the records of wild amur tigers (modern and old)

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Now here are the records of wild bengal tigers (modern and old)

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Some captive Bengal weights

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Some captive amur weights

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I see some keep on repeating the term Amur tigers are the biggest it is said in many books and by biologists etc, but I like to ask where is the info or data to back that claim ???
Studying Biology doesnt make you an authority in the subject of size and weight of Amur and Bengals. They just repeat what they studied in the books. The ones who really worked in the field (capturing and weighing tigers) and Raw data and measurements are the authority

When it comes to Bengals and amurs, the old hunting records and the modern scientific records all show that bengals were heavier animals than amurs.
For any large amur (size and weight) hunted in the wild (historic or old or new doesnt matter) we have equally large and bigger bengals hunted in India, Nepal. 
The records shows this. For any enormous giant amur found in old hunting pictures we can match that easily with the giant bengals hunted in India, Nepal. 
Other than this we dont have much evidence to work with in regards to the size difference between amurs and bengals in the wild. 
Anything else is pure speculation and personal preference. 
When it comes to modern scientific records in the wild, its the bengals which were bigger.


Another possible way to approach this is, look at the purebred and studbook amurs compare there size with wild bengals. 
Remember the captive amurs wont have the preybase problems and it will also have the luxury to carry more weight because its not necessary to be very fit to catch its prey. Meaning the captive amurs will definitely have an advantage of growing bigger due to better and easier nutritional availability than wild bengals. 
But for our surprise the results were not much different captive purebred amurs average around the same size as wild bengals. I guess it explains alot.

When it comes to captivity most of the giant weights belongs to highly obese animals. These animals can never be the representative for size and weight of a particular species or subspecies. These animals can never survive in the wild with such high obseity and low fitness levels. 
But genuine non obese freak specimens do occur once in a while in captivity, but they are not the norms. Such freak specimens will also occur in the wild.

But the difference is in the wild not all freak specimens will survive and reach maturity and breed. Because there are so many hurdles. Even if it makes to maturity, chances of it being seen by humans is slim.
But in captivity such freaks are carefully reared and line bred to create more freaks.


Here is a LARGE wild Bengal tiger, which can be compared to most of the freaks in captivity.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Some of the latest info on wild bengals shows subadult males (2.5 years+) are surpassing 225kg scales easily (Bheema, Poochkanta, BMW's son, T24, Bittu, Srinivas, Jaichand etc). That should give us an idea on Modern Bengal size.

I hope all this info is helpful

Thanks Reply