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

[peter]

THE MALAYAN TIGER - Part A

1 - INTRODUCTION

This subspecies is an enigma. I know P.t. jacksoni inhabits the southern tip of Malaysia (Johore), but I have no idea about the limit of its distribution. The only thing I know is those who hunted in different parts of Malaysia a century ago agreed that Perak tigers are different from those in the south.

With 'different', I mean generally larger and more robust. In the first decades of the last century, not one male tiger shot in the southern part of Malaysia exceeded 8.8 'between pegs' (264,16 cm.). But the Sultan of Johore, at the turn of the 19th and the 20th century, shot males well exceeding 9.0 (274,32 cm.). His longest, according to Locke ('The Tigers of Terengganu', 1954), was 9.8 (294,64 cm.) 'between pegs'. Were tigers of this size more or less common in those days, was the Sultan lucky or did tigers in the southern part of Malaysia change in half a century only?

I don't know. I do know, however, that the tigers shot by the Sultan of Johore were anything but long and lanky. Locky saw his longest tiger in the trophy room. He wrote the tiger was big in all respects. Pocock ('Tigers', JBNHS, 1929) referred to a Johore skull with a greatest total length of 14,5 inches (368,30 mm.). My guess is this was the skull of the longest tiger shot by the Sultan of Johore.    

There are many questions. In order to find out a bit more on Malayan tigers, I will post everything I have in the next posts. This one starts with a map.

2 - MAP

*This image is copyright of its original author

Johore, at the southern tip, is just north of Singapore. A century ago, tigers were seen quite often very close to Singapore. I have one photograph of a tiger shot just north of Singapore:

*This image is copyright of its original author

This tiger, an adult male, could be typical for P.t. jacksoni: very black, quite wide (doubled) stripes, about 8 feet 'between pegs' in length and 300 pounds or thereabout.  

3 - HISTORY OF MALAYAN TIGERS

Malaysia seems to be a crossroads, with three subspecies close to each other. There's P.t. sumatrae in Sumatra just west of Malaysia, there is P.t. jacksoni at the southern tip of the peninsula and there's P.t. corbetti a bit further north. 

They didn't come from the same direction. Sunda Shelf tigers colonized Sumatra from the southheast (Java) well before the Holocene (10 000 years ago) started, whereas corbetti and jacksoni colonized Malaysia from the north, also probably well before the Holocene started. 

After tigers had colonized Malaysia from the north, my guess is the entrance (the Isthmus of Kra) was inundated. This resulted in the isolation of tigers who had already reached the southern part of the peninsula. I don't know how long they were isolated, but it must have been long enough to evolve into a different tiger.

When the sea level dropped and tigers again entered Malaysia from the north through the Isthmus of Kra, they mixed to an extent with Malayan tigers. The gene exchange, however, must have been limited, as those in the extreme south (P.t. jacksoni), according to recent research (see post 505), are different from those a bit further north (P.t. corbetti). Reply