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

[peter]

(11-06-2015, 10:04 AM)tigerluver Wrote: I agree that pre-20th century data are likely iffy. However, the 1900s are quite close to us in methodology. They had fully functioning cameras, scales, and a sense of uniformity when providing data.

The hunter bias is a possibility, but it goes back to the my original point. Hopefully, in a sample of say 10 cats, one can hope only 1 has been tampered with. Again, hunted Bengal tigers actually seem a bit smaller, so I don't think it is an issue. The Amur database was around 7-9 I believe in Kerley et al., so any tampering would hurt there. However, these researchers were okay with such records.

No where did I insinuate that the extreme freaks are representative of a population. Really, what do we consider "representative" of a population when an average cat is more of an ideal type than a reality anyhow. The idea of an average is very much just to give us a new measure of the world in a sense. 

Our lack of experience with an 8 ft. human does not change the fact that they did exist. The ticket to the modern king of giants in cats has probably already been used for the next generations in our lifetimes, so we'll never see it, but back to the aforementioned point. 

The reduction in felid population is an interesting one in terms of size. The relationship between size and density is a strong one, as a well as a resources cofactor. For most endangered, the density is likely lower than before, so the relationship would predict an increase in size, however, you're right that the resources would likely change that.

We could separate this discussion into a new thread, as I think we're getting off topic now. Let me know if you guys would like to start a new thread on the validity of hunting records.

Good debate, interesting topic and relevant as well. Tigerluver, you can start a new thread in the Premier League. My proposal regarding the title would be 'The reliability of hunting records', 'Hunting records and peer-reviewed documents on morphological data' or 'How to approach hunting records'.

We would need a lead post. My proposal is you write it. Remember there are questions on both hunting records and peer-reviewed documents. If the good Dr. Panthera agrees, we could start with the exchange between you and him in this thread and continue from there. A part of the recent debate on methods could be included. Reply