ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[peter]

HEAD AND BODY LENGTH, TOTAL LENGTH, ROBUSTNESS AND WEIGHT IN TIGERS 

Although I understand, Guate, I do not agree with your assumption on head and body length, total length, robustness and weight. There are plenty of records of shortish tigers with a tail of normal length and more or less normal proportions. In spite of that, they were very heavy. I also have lots of records of long-bodied and lanky tigers. Mass is sometimes expressed in a long body or impressive body dimensions, but in most cases it isn't. 

Maj. Phytian-Adams shot a long tiger with a very long tail in the Nilgiris. Although the dimensions of the body were not remarkable, the tiger was very heavy. R.C.Morris shot a short tiger in the Nilgiris. Although only 8.8. 'between pegs', the chest of this tiger with a head and body length of 177,80 cm. was 57 inches (144,78 cm.). His weight, however, wasn't remarkable.  

The 9.11 giant shot by Dunbar Brander was a robust animal. The difference with many other bulky animals was he, like his mother, had a very long body (7.3) and a short tail (2.8). That, however, doesn't mean animals with long bodies are robust. It means they have a long body. Many male Amur tigers have long bodies as a rule, but they seldom exceed 200 kg. One of the few who did was shorter than average.

I tried to find a relation between head and body length, total length, body dimensions and robustness in tigers. It isn't there. The only thing I'm sure of is long tigers nearly always were much heavier than short tigers in northern India a century ago and the only reason I could think of was age. 

Let's turn to humans to find out a bit more. In the country where I live, young adults are as long as older men but not as heavy. The most likely reason, apart from accumulation of fat when men get older, is men grow in mass as a result of more density until 30-35. After 40 or so, most start to lose muscle mass. I'm now heavier than when I was 20. Not fatter, bigger or more muscular, but heavier. The only reason I can think of is (bone or muscle) density and my guess is it's the same in big cats and bears.

I agree tigers with a long body and more or less normal proportions would most probably be heavier than shorter tigers of normal proportions, but body length itself isn't related to robustness. Robustness largely is a result of density. As density is related to age and tigers grow nearly all their life, old animals usually are longer and denser and, therefore, heavier than young adults. Reply