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

[Greatearth]

I wish users in wildfact speak about different tiger subspecies such as the Chinese tiger, Indochinese tiger, Malayan tiger, Sumatran tiger, and extinct tiger subspecies instead of keep talking about the same topic on the Siberian tiger: their size, why they became smaller in size today, their populations, interaction with brown bears, and other things about Siberian tigers. Anyway, I have some topic to discuss on the northern Bengal tigers. I am dubious about those tigers are really larger than central Bengal tigers. I think it is just northern Bengal tiger fanboys are spreading rumor on those tigers are ultimate tigers. I saw fanboys were saying single northern Bengal tiger in Terai and Assam can take down the largest known prehistoric felidae, short faced bear, and even asiatic elephant. However, only reliable source of those tigers (Terai and Assam) are the Smithsonian tiger project in Chitwan. And two largest tigers, Sauraha (M105) and M126 were around 227~272 kg (272 kg was something inside of stomach). Sauraha seems to be 261 kg with empty stomach when he measured the last time, but he was bottomed 227 kg when he measured in 1974-1975. Sauraha was 198 cm from heady to body, 310 cm including his tail from what I know. He was similar in size to other largest tigers in Kanha, Bandhavgarh, ...etc. Assam tigers seemed larger in pictures because of their belly. The same as people think Wagdoh is the largest because he has massive body. However, I don't believe Assam tigers are longer and taller. They just have bulky and fat body since they are living in good areas and huge prey (Kaziranga and other places in Assam are the only places in India that allowing rangers to shot poachers). Northern Bengal tigers seemed to be larger if we add old data, but those data can't be trusted 100% if we compared to measurement from modern days by scientists. And many of huge size tigers were probably gorged when they were hunted/measured. Their overall sizes on length and height are similar to the largest tigers in other parts of India. Even Bachelor of Powalgarh was 323 cm long. However, I don't know if it was over curve or between the pegs. The measured data of todays' Himalayan tigers in Bhutan is no larger than tigers in central India. Thus, northern Bengal tigers are obviously similar in size as tigers in Bandhavgarh, Tadoba, Kanha, ...etc.

I don't know about tigers in western India in Ranthambore and Sariska. They look slim and lighter, but I don't know about length and height.

Indochinese tigers and Malayan tigers seemed very interesting too. Even though many Indochina to Malay Peninsula are similar rainforest, but they seemed to have different body sizes and appearance. However, I don't really have any old/today data of these tigers. Reply