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

[GuateGojira]

(04-14-2015, 10:09 PM)'peter' Wrote: Ad 2 - Most, if not all, tigers Hewett and his guests shot were not baited. The hunters, informed on the whereabouts of tigers by trackers, used elephants to surround and shoot them. In quite many cases, complete tiger families were driven out of cover and shot. Some of the cubs survived, only to be shot one or two years later or so. This is how Hewett knew some of the males weighed were young adults or adolescents.

Ad 3 - Some male tigers shot in southern India exceeded 500 pounds. The Luckvalley tiger certainly did. Old One Eye, full of beef, was 11 feet 'over curves' and estimated at 700 pounds. Meinertzhagen shot two males not selected for size in southern India. They were 454 and 498 pounds. R.G. Burton ('A book of Man-Eaters') shot one of 9.8 in the Deccan who exceeded a 500-pound scale. He was estimated at 550. Hicks shot a very large tiger of 9.7 'between pegs' in Mysore. Judging from his measurements (chest 64 inches, neck 38 and skull 40), he was much more robust than the Sauraha tiger. There is a report of a tiger shot in southern India with a chest of 73 inches. I also noticed quite many tigers shot in southern India exceeded 14,5 inches in greatest total skull length. 

Ad 4 - Hewett's book has a lot of information. The 18 males he weighed averaged 435,60 pounds and 291,96 cm. 'over curves'. The 22 he didn't weigh averaged 300,87 cm. Of the 18 he weighed, 8 long tigers averaged 299,71 cm. 'over curves' and 491,75 pounds. The 10 others averaged 285,75 cm. and 390,80 pounds, a difference of nearly 101 pounds. The conclusion is total length, and not head and body length, is the best factor to estimate weight. The reason, I think, is age. Male tigers seem to grow nearly all their life and put on weight until they start deteriorating. A century ago, some males estimated at 15-20 years were in excellent health and very big when they were shot. Today, as a result of severe competition, this is unheard of. The 40 males shot by Hewett and his guests, by the way, averaged 296,86 cm. 'over curves'. Use the information you have to estimate the average weight of all 40. Not that difficult, but it will take you some time. You can use the table I posted some time ago. 

 

On Ad 2: Thanks for the clarification, so the records from Hewett are safe to use. Just one thing, I think that we most a warn the people that the smaller males in Hewett list were definitely not adults and probable about 2 or 3 years old. The average with the males between 170 to 259 kg only, is of 208.8 kg (n=16) and I think this is the correct one to use (this is slightly more than the records from Cooch Behar at 205 kg). More information in this "old" topic: http://wildfact.com/forum/topic-brander-...he-records

On Ad 3: The Luckvalley tiger seems and exception, but I don't think it was the rule in this area. The tiger of 700 lb was estimated and gorged and the big male of Burton bottomed the scale of 500 lb and was estimated at 550 lb (249.5 kg). I found the estimation of Burton more reliable than that of 700 lb, but if true, this could suggest that tigers in this area do reached the same weights than those of the north. However, if we take all the available weights (actually taken) from this area, the heaviest one is the male T-03 captured by Dr Karanth and that weighed 227 kg (500 lb) "adjusted". On the chest girth, I think that 160-170 cm seems to be the maximum for a large tiger, including probably a big layer of fat in the chest, but a girth of 180 cm or more looks to suspicious for me. It sound like the figures of 220 cm in chest girths quoted by Baikov, that at the end, were probably just from skins. Maybe those girths were from the animal already inflated by the decomposition, or they were heavily gorged.

On Ad 4: I most state again that I don't trust in total length, because it don't show the true proportions of the animal. For example, the large tiger of 322 cm hunted in the Duars weighed only 222 kg, but the giant tiger of Brander, with only 302 cm in total length, probably surpassed the 272 kg. The large tiger of 204 cm in head-body from Nagarahole weighed only 227 kg while the Sauraha male at only 197 cm was over 260 kg, check that these males measured 311 and 310 cm respectively and the same case can be applied to the Amur tigers. Maybe the total length could be a good estimator of weight (based on Hewett), but definitely other measurements are also important to get a true idea of the size and proportions of a tiger, like the head-body or the girths; the heaviest tiger from Hewett (570 lb - 259 kg) measured 293 cm "over curves" which means a length of only c.278 between pegs, this suggest that this male was a giant with a short tail, which seems the case of many of the larger-heaviest tigers (in the paint of the tiger of 705 lb from Nepal, we can see that this other tiger also had a very short tail). In the case of the Bachelor of Powalgarh, it will be a big mistake to take it just like a 10 ft animal, when in fact, this was a brute of Biblical proportions, it is huge and dwarf the Sauraha tiger, but if we take only the total length, they are of the same size, when in fact, it wasn't the case. What I try to say is that total length, alone, don't give the true idea of the size of a great cat.
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