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

[GuateGojira]

I think that you have a point. Many posts (and years) ago I discused the idea that based in the records that I had, there is practically no difference between the size of the tigers in the India Subcontinent (excluding Sundarbans). Tigers from north, central and south India are of the same body size, altough those from northern India are slightly heavier, on average, than those from Central and particularly those from South India. The ranges that I found were between 195 - 210 kg and those from the Terai top the list, althoug if we take in count those from the Gwalior region like a single population, the average is higher there!

The problem is that all that information from about 200 specimens, togheter with all the other information that I had is lost (5 years of information lost, just like that), so I no longer have the data to back up my conclutions and I need to start again, from 0. Is a long work and now I no longer have the time, so I will take the double of time for me to collect all my previous information.

Now, returning to the point, I found that the heaviest specimens from all regions are about the same weight (250-260 kg) and the body dimentions are practically the same (just a few centimeters of difference). However testimonies of Dr Mel Sunquist and the great Valmik Thapar suggest that tigers in the Kaziranga park are larger that even the largest specimens from Nepal, but sadly we still don't have any data from the place.

However, my conclusion about the equality of sizes in the Bengal population was partially rejected by many posters here and now that I don't have my previous evidence is very dificult to debate this. However it is interesting to note that while Nepalese tigers are, for the moment, the largest tigers captured by scientists in modern days, a recent document says that Dr Jhala estimate that tigers from Ranthambore clasify among the largest specimens from India (it doesn't say heaviests, just largest), which may suggest that the lineage of the giant tigers of Gwalior may still survive at some point.

In conclution, I still believe that the tigers of India/Nepal and probably Bhutan, are "about" the same size and weight, but on average the population of the Terai and the Assam is slightly heavier. Old Amur tiger records (the few reliable ones) do match the biggest Bengal tigers populations, but now the Amur tigers are just about 10 kg heavier than the Indochinese tigers and about 10-20 kg lower than those from India/Nepal. Reply