There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
Karanth has been a student of Sunquist during the 1980s. He learnt a lot of things from him. He seems to have measured his tigers along the curves to be consistent to the methodology used in Chitawan by his teacher a decade before his PhD.
If that was actually the case as it seems, the fact of course raises the question about the length of his tigers appearing appreciably shorter in head-and-body length then the average Indian tiger from historical reliable records but with unusually long tails as the Chitawan tigers, particularly considering the heavy weights he recorded and the fact that several tigers from Nilgiris in south India appear from historical records rather stocky animals on average. The very heavy female from Karanth in particular would appear really short for her high recorded weight.
Again the point I highlighted in a previous post for the Sauraha make M105 could also apply to Karanth’s Nagarahole tigers.
“However, I would conclude stating that there are also quite relevant probabilities that the Sauraha male was likely not accurately measured for a number of reasons. He may have not been stretched enough while being measured and/or the measurement was faulty somewhere reading pessimistically like due for instance to not pressing the tape sufficiently hard on the body to follow the contour and/or the animal was badly positioned to appreciate its full size for measurement (although it is easier the other way around while measuring along the curves) and/or the tail measured separately and subtracted from the total length was considered longer then it actually was.”
In my opinion the amount of body stretching applied and the exact definition of the tail compared to the historical records can really play big roles in the issue.