The Java Tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica)

[GuateGojira]

Size of the Balinese tiger and its Taxonomy, is V. Mazák completelly wrong???

Following the new wave of discoveries presented by Phatio on the Javanese tigers, I present new evidence, although from museum specimens.

In these days I manage to found several new documents about the evolution of lions and tigers, and for that reason I stooped to write an article about the evolution of these animals, because I was interested in knowing more on this issue, at the light of new studies.

Focusing on the tiger, there is a new document from Dr Yamaguchi and others, from 2013, named "Locating specimens of extinct tiger (Panthera tigris) subspecies: Javan tiger (P. t. sondaica), Balinese tiger (P. t. balica), and Caspian tiger (P. t. virgata), including previously unpublished specimens". I attached the document.

In this paper, the team of Scientists found several new specimens from these subspecies in museums and they present a large list. The next steep in the so awaited DNA study of these animals, specifically those of the Sunda.

This document present the idea that the plain statement of "no subspecies" from Dr Kitchener was probably wrong in the issue of the Caspian tiger, as the vast area probably presented some few differences in morphology. However, they backed the study of Dr Driscoll and his team, which suggested that the Amur and the Caspian tigers are the same and only subspecies-population. In this case, Yamaguchi and his team states that there is the need of another study with more specimens, and IF the result is corroborated, the entire Caspian and Amur tiger population should be renamed as Panthera tigris virgata.

On the Sunda tigers, they also accepted now that the evidence suggest that the Sunda tigers could be a completely different subspecies or even another species of tiger and that the Balinese and the Javanese tigers were probably of the same taxonomic group, but they are cautions. Read the document, it is very well explained.

Finally, the main event, check this out: "Only three photographs of the Balinese tiger appear to have been known previously. Perhaps the most famous and most widespread photograph is of the tiger shot in 1925 (Nowell and Jackson 1996). Another photograph of an animal shot by Zandveld in Bali is published by V. Mazák (1983). Also, there is a photograph of a tiger shot by Baron Oszkár Vojnich of Hungary at Gunung Gondol, northwestern Bali, in November 1911 (Buzas and Farkas 1997). Figure 5 is only the fourth known photograph of the Balinese tiger. It appears that more than 50 Balinese tigers were shot during the early 20th Century (Boomgaard 2001), suggesting that some unknown Balinese tiger specimens may still exist."

Now, here is the NEW picture of the Balinese tiger:

*This image is copyright of its original author

If you ask me, this specimen is as large as a Sumatran tiger or the Pantanal jaguars. Kitchener (1999) pointed out that the database of the extinct tigers is so small that is impossible to get a good idea of the real morphology of those tigers. In this case, there are only 9 skulls published in literature, and only 7 of them are from adults (3 adult males and 4 adult females). With such a small sample, is practically impossible to get a comparative good image of the entire population. Mazák (1981) guessed that the Balinese tiger probably weighed between 75 to 100 kg (there is not a single weight published about the Balinese tigers), and he also estimated the total length as about the same than leopards of jaguars.

However, it is possible that Mazák made a mistake, creating a wrong idea that Balinese tigers were very very small, while in fact, the sample is too small to get an accurate idea. Besides, Mazák did not know the Gondol tiger, which base in the published measurements and the skull, it was of the same size than the largest Jaguars in South America.

Some tiger ago, I created a table with the calculated weights of all the Balinese tigers skulls available, using the formula of Christiansen & Harris (2009), here are the results:

*This image is copyright of its original author

More information in this page (post 27): http://animalbattle.yuku.com/topic/7/Eve...IPoG8kXK7U

The results corroborated the calculations of Mazák (1981) on the females, but did not match with the males, presenting higher figures. Now, we need to add this new picture, which shows a large specimen, probably also between 120-130 kg, but I may be wrong.

It seem that the long accepted "fact" that the Javanese and Balinese tigers were very small is incorrect.

1. Pictures and calculations of weight show that Bali tigers were as large as those of Sumatra.
2. The largest skulls from Java are of the same size than the maximum found in South China (349 mm against 348 mm, respectively) and are prety close on average (only 7 mm less).
3. Data suggest that Java tigers were larger than those from Sumatra, especially by the fact that they had a larger prey base.

Finally, the long quoted weight of 142 kg for the Java tigers, although is correct, it is only ONE weight, and we don't know if that figures is a "freak" specimen, or if its a "average sized" specimen or maybe a "small" male. We simply don't know.

A deep investigation on the facts convinced me that the sizes presented by Mazák (1981) are more wrong every time that I found new studies, not only in the Bengal and Amur tigers, but now also in the Bali and Javan tigers.

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