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

[Pckts]

(08-20-2014, 09:44 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote: I have observed and interesting fact from all these images: there is no such thing as an average coat pattern in Bengal tigers!!!

From all those images, some of these specimens looks like Amur tigers, others looks like Indochinese and there is even one that looks like a Sumatran one! This is the reason why Dr Kitchener pointed out the fact that the modern subspecies classification, based in the morphology of a few specimens, is "invalid" and should not be used anymore. The variation of coat pattern in Bengal tigers is huge, just like its size: the largest Bengals are as large as the largest Amur tigers (320 kg) and the smallest Bengals are as small as the smallest Bali tigers (75 kg)!

 

I don't necessarily agree with this, if you look at Ranthambhore tigers, they seem to have a distinct darker shaded coat and their facial markings seem to be bold and very connected. (if that makes sense)

Kanha seem to have a slightly lighter coat and less sharp edges on their facial markings.
Raja and tigers from the south seem to have less stripes in the front and a darker coat.
Tadabo tigers seem to have lighter coats to me.

I would say for the most part, Ranthambhore and Corbett and Bandipur seem to have the most distinctive differences in coats between Indian Tigers, but that is only judging from images and it is very hard to tell.
But I also agree that sometimes tigers have very different coats even in the same area as well as images portray a different color or coat as well. Reply