Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers

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(10-11-2019, 05:05 PM)BlakeW39 Wrote:

(10-11-2019, 10:40 AM)Rishi Wrote:

(10-11-2019, 01:52 AM)BlakeW39 Wrote:

(10-10-2019, 07:29 PM)Rishi Wrote: Atleast 3 (conventional) subspecies of lions average weight scales within range of 350lbs & 400lbs. You gotta consider them too.

The ±500lbs is an rough estimate & pretty conservative at that... We know the weights of several tigers mostly from Central India. We have most above-average & even young adult tigers with confirmed weights of 220-230kg. A healthy adult Bengal below 200 kg is rather uncommon. Please see ahead in this thread, our collection is quite impressive.
And it is pretty universally accepted amongst most experts that Tigers in Terai & Northeast India at average are easily larger. Thus 500lb.

Not sure what you mean by conventional, but only smaller lion populations have ranged so low. Since I was refering to large tigers (Bengals) it would be symetrical and fair to comoare them with large lions (melanochaita Southern clade). A lion of this region at 350lbs would be usually small. 400-450lbs seems more accurate to the data on these Southern lions, man. P. l. leo seems smaller and to fit to the range you stated.

I would love to review your data, friend. Do you have a page number, perhaps? I have seen tiger averages and they, *those that I have seen*, were never so high. But I am interested to see that 500lbs would be an average weight for Indian (and surrounding) tigers. I always saw a range of around 425-475lbs+ *but this may be dated and I have confidence that you have seen more tiger masses than I* given that I am, I admit, slightly more familiar with lions (though I haven't any preference to them).

I was referring to all subspecies, of both species... which i clearly mentioned. It's better not to pick & choose.

"Un-conventional" lion subspecies refer to the recent suggestions that onlines belong to two general subspecies Northern (Asiatic, Barbary & West-African) & Southern (East-African, South-African, Southwest-African). @BorneanTiger can point you towards the detailed posts he made on this topic, if you don't already know.

And no, I can't give you 1 specific page number. You have gotta go through the whole thread, it's a a short one & the data is stored all over it.
Ideally you should go through the tiger population's threads (Terai, Central India, South India, Eastern & Western Ghats, Northeast, Himalayas, West, Sundarban) too.

Because 95% of the very little publicly available & reliable modern tiger weights are from Central or South India, I repeat, the northern tigers' possible average weight was an estimation based on their physique compared to the ones whose weights are known. Could be higher or lower, from population to population.

On top of that only young-adults are collared in India & almost no healthy tigers get tranquilised. Weighing of stranded or problem tigers sedated for capture & release is uncommon. Even if done, that data is rarely released.
We know next to nothing about weight of prime specimens.

(10-11-2019, 11:16 AM)Roflcopters Wrote: considering only 2% of wild tigers get weighed annually, how do you know what the real figure is? this is a department that least concerns the experts on the field and i understand why. not everyone is capable of taking down a 300-500kg capacity scale to weigh an animal, specially when the time is limited while the animals are sedated. even with the 2% rate, males of over 220kg are not hard to find. tigers are hardly weighed. this isn’t even an opinion. facts.

Thanks, I'll look through. And yes I'm aware of the research done on those lion subspecies (that's what I was referencing). Which was why I chose the larger of the two to compare to large tigers, I like to compare smaller tigers to large jaguars since the range is so great. Using a whole species for comparison fades the usefulness of an average weight. But this is interesting, I'll look into some of the stuff you guys got here - thanks.

(10-11-2019, 11:16 AM)Roflcopters Wrote: considering only 2% of wild tigers get weighed annually, how do you know what the real figure is? this is a department that least concerns the experts on the field and i understand why. not everyone is capable of taking down a 300-500kg capacity scale to weigh an animal, specially when the time is limited while the animals are sedated. even with the 2% rate, males of over 220kg are not hard to find. tigers are hardly weighed. this isn’t even an opinion. facts.

I'm confused man, what's fact..? That 2% of tigers are weighed or that 220kg males are existant? lol well I'm not sure any of this is fact as you'd call it... speculation and theorization, even if accurate at that.

What comes to weighings of the big cats and other animals, it´s same with all. It´s not easy or without risks to sedate wild animals and then weigh them. 2% of tigers, might be same or even less with lions... I don´t think, that even 1% have been weighed. Biggest bears... there are maybe 1-2 times, when wild Kodiak bears have been weighed. So in this way tigers or lions are nothing special. Lately there have been discussions about rainforest leopards, not much good information really about those either. 

It is as it is. So there might be (and without a doubt are) many big representatives of different species which have never been weighed. There have been many photos and videos about tigers and lions showing impressive individuals, but we will never know their exact size or weight, many are gone already. Like the famous lion Caesar, considered as biggest ever in Maasai Mara by many. But all what we have are "guesstimations". Reply