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

[tigerluver]

(06-21-2018, 05:43 AM)peter Wrote:

(06-20-2018, 06:39 AM)tigerluver Wrote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

@peter , @GrizzlyClaws , are there any more detailed measurements on this skull? Also which book/article is this from? The citation seems to be "Loukashkin, A. S. (1938). The manchurian tiger. China J., Shanghai, 28, 127-133." but the trails runs dry beyond that.

The photograph is from V. Mazak's 'Der Tiger' (1983). Here's the story.

According to V. Mazak, the photograph (65 x 90 mm.), most probably, was made by a European living in the northern part of China in the thirties of the last century. Mazak got it from J. Bartusek from the former Czechoslovakian Orient Institute. When he visited China in the sixties of the last century, he received it from an official source. 

The measurements of the skull from Chanwangshai (northeastern China) were written on the back of the photograph. 

In order to prevent misinterpretations and confusion, I decided to scan the pages 193-195 from Mazak's book (in German). The story on the photograph starts halfway page 193: 

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Mazak thought that the measurements were genuine, " ... da man Schadel dieser Abmessungen bei außergewohnlich großen Tieren erwarten kann ... " (pp. 194). 

Wild Amur tigers of exceptional size have been discussed before. One of these was the tiger shot in 1943 by Sin-En-Tschzin. The debate about this tiger was about its weight, not the skull. The skull, however, was exceptional: 

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Although wild Amur tigers of exceptional size have not been seen by biologists in the period 1992-2018, some large captive male Amur tigers have been measured. One of these, the famous Duisburg zoo tiger, was 320 cm. in total length in a straight line. Almost as long as the large male of the Prague Zoo measured by V. Mazak, but more robust. In this department, he compared to the giant shot in 1943. The length of his head was 50 cm.:

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This tiger no doubt had a very large skull, but my guess is the skull was never measured. This means that those interested had to continue swimming in circles.

Than this photograph was published in a paper:

*This image is copyright of its original author

It is about the 125 mm. scale just below the skull, as it enables a quite accurate estimate. My attempts resulted in at greatest total length of at least 420 mm. and a rostrum width of about 122 mm. Unheard of, but possible when the owner is exceptional in size. And there's no question he was:  

*This image is copyright of its original author

If we add the skull of an old Amur tiger from a Japanese zoo described in a paper discussed in the thread 'On the Edge of Extinction - A - The tiger (Panthera tigris)', the conclusion is that the table of V. Mazak often used in books has to be updated. I'm not too sure about the average length of captive and wild male Amur tigers, but it's clear that the greatest total skull length of large individuals ranges between 360-406 mm., apparently even up to 420-430 mm.

The head and body length of the Koln Zoo tiger (see the last photograph), by the way, was 240 cm. (...). The tigress, still alive as far as I know, also is a large animal.

As requested, here is a copy of @peter's excellent post regarding the largest of Amur tiger skulls. Just click on the quote to expand it. Reply