Amur Tigers

[tigerluver]

The Wahnsien tiger in itself probably went extinct via evolution before 100k years ago considering the Ngandong tiger may have evolved as earlier as 500,000 years ago looking at dating of the Ngandong faunal level (referenced in the article). Thus, I don't think the Wahnsien hybridized with any modern forms, rather just gave rise to them. At the same token, tigers seem to have evolved barely throughout the ages, with the only major difference being size, relative robusticity (the Ngandong tiger blows the other subspecies out of water here, with post-Ngandong subspecies being a bit more robust than pre-Ngandong forms), the odd digits, and skull variation. These changes are more adaptive to the situation (prey size and density varied across Asia) and genetic chance in my opinion (population geographically isolate, by chance you end up with a certain omnipresent trait). All these slight differences are shown in the tiger's modern subspeciation, evidence to my previous point.

The Caspian-Amur population probably just expanded over into the Strait and then for whatever reason failed to stay and expand further. Why the lion clad got there and expanded and tigers couldn't, not sure. For one, the lion clad got there much earlier, environment may have effected the tigers' attempted expansion much later. Habitat is a big factor as well, as stated numerous times, tigers aren't found as much in the open. Morphologically, tigers are bulky for their frame, not good for covering large distances of open grassland. Though, the modern Amur tiger is showing evolution of the frame. This form has seriously lost in bulk to equal that of the lion relative bulkiness. My explanation to this phenomenon is how much more cursorial modern Amur tigers are forced to be due, with their huge territories. Finally, maybe the tigers that made it Alaska were not genetically adept, as theoretically, the weaker specimens will get pushed out of the home range. The Strait would have been submerged before the genetically superior specimens could get to Alaska.

I wish there was a more concrete article on the tiger specimens in Alaska. As of now, there are more of "he said, she said" sources lying around. Reply