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

[BorneanTiger]

(05-28-2019, 12:10 AM)Spalea Wrote: @BorneanTiger :

About #369: very good and interesting the book of the link you gave !

It's basically a minimized English translation of one of the Russian books from the late 20th century by Heptner on mammals in what used to be the USSR or Soviet Union (including Russia, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and Ukraine), with this one being about hyænas and felids (https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...5/mode/2up), and this one (https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...5/mode/2up) being about Sirenia (sea cows), canids and bears (and even this one talks about felids like the tiger due to their symbiotic relationship with any of the latter 2: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...arch/tiger). Since the Siberian tiger is currently in the Russian Far East, its close Caspian relative used to be recorded in the former Soviet territories of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and the Persian or Asiatic lion is likewise accepted to have occurred in the Trans-Caucasus or South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan or Georgia), and possibly even in Central Asia (pages 87–89: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...8/mode/2up), they are counted. Heptner and Sludskiy provide insights into the former distribution of the tiger in the ex-USSR, for instance providing rare pictures of skins of Caspian tigers, besides that they were still around in the Near East (including the Caucasus) and Middle Asia when they wrote this book (pages 107–108: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...6/mode/2up).

Page 109: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...8/mode/2up

*This image is copyright of its original author

Pages 132–135, mostly skins of Amur tigers, except for a comparison of tails of the Amur and Caspian tigers (Turan would more or less be Central Asia, where the latter were): https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...2/mode/2up 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Page 142, skins of Caspian tigers in Turan or Central Asia: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...2/mode/2up

*This image is copyright of its original author

Page 146, they accepted the possibility of the Caspian tiger occurring in Central Asia (including what is now Turkmenistan), Afghanistan and Iran: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...6/mode/2up 

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply