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[GuateGojira]

(08-13-2014, 11:41 PM)'tigerluver' Wrote:

(08-13-2014, 07:52 PM)'GuateGojira' Wrote:

(08-13-2014, 06:08 PM)'tigerluver' Wrote: Body weight and length are directly correlated, but the correlation is extremely weak in lions for some reason. Tigers have a strong correlation of r^2 = >.75, but the lions I have on record around 0.30, abysmal.  

My main guess to why this occurs in lions and not tigers is food intake at the time of weighing. Tigers are normally consistently baited, where lions it looks are found with either a empty enough stomach (I say "enough" as rarely one will find a truly empty belly animal, so it seems most calculate food intake conservatively to keep things even between gorged and regularly full specimens) or gorged off a recent kill, causing inconsistencies. What do you guys think?


 

In fact, I have some doubts about the relation of size (total length or body length?) and weight in tigers.

For example, the largest Amur tiger captured in Sikhote-Alin measured 208 cm in head-body (309 cm in total length) but weighed only 169 kg! However, on the other side, the largest male captured in Nagarahole measured 204 cm in head-body (311 cm in total length) and weighed 227 kg. Even more impressive, the famous Sauraha from Nepal measured only 197 cm in head-body (310 cm in total length) but weighed 261 kg.

Maybe this are just exceptions to the rule, but even then, it shows that like humans, some tigers are long but light and others are short but heavy. Take in count that none of those three males had stomach content.
 

 

For one, for whatever reason Amurs and Bengals have totally different body proportions. I've no idea why, but even the 306 kg specimen mentioned by Mazak is proportionately light (details in the extinct feline thread). 

I don't have the details on the Nagarhole male. What was his age, by the way? If I remember correctly this is a corrected value? Regardless, there will certainly be examples of awkward variation. The longest male on record was 221 kg or something exceptionally light, while we have a 389 kg, gorged or not, tiger of length 322 cm. These freaks cause that 0.25 R-squared value we're missing. Sauraha fits the average proporton of a tiger. When 30 specimens (chart in the extinct felines thread) from different sources give a correlation of >0.75, can't doubt the correlation between total length and weight. I had to hypothesis test all this for my paper, you'll see it there in a long while (too much on my plate right now).

To be honest I don't know how much baiting occurs, that was just a loose guess. I don't correct body masses in my database. I've taken everything as is, dying and lanky specimens to gorged big guys, it all balances out. Agree with you Pckts.

 

I think I should agree in the fact that Amur tigers seems lighter than Bengal ones, however (and interestingly) they have the largest (overall) and most massive skulls of the entire species!

The male T-03 from Nagarahole NP, known as "Dasa", was an adult male (no exact age) tracked from January 1990 to September 1991. This male was a transient one until June 1990, which suggest an age of at least 4-5 years old. Then he was a resident but lost it radiocollar in 1991. Sadly, at the end, he was killed by a gaur during a failed hunt. The real weight of this male was of 257 kg, however as he was baited, Dr Karanth adjusted his body mass by 30 kg and the result was of 227 kg. Don't know why he adjusted it by so much, maybe he was indeed gorged, or maybe Nagarahole tigers have a higher food intake than for example, Nepalese tigers, which eat between 14-19 kg in a day, based in baits and natural kills. As far I know, there is no study about the food intake of Nagarahole tigers at all.

Finally, indirectly, you resolved my doubt, you are using "total length", not "head-body length". Then, in this form, the Bengal tigers "Dasa" (311 cm - 227 kg) and "Sauraha" (310 cm - 261 kg) are "larger" than the Amur male "Maurice" (309 cm - 179 kg). By the way, none of these weights have stomach content.
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