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(07-29-2019, 10:17 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: Well, I saw the video and I can say that is a good one, not exceptional but the information that it shares is accurate.
There are only two things that I consider an error:
1. The size that they quote is the same old "mantra" that still continue even in scientific books. So is probably not her fauld or that of the video editors. In fact, like @peter mentions, in the book "The Way of the Tiger" Dr Karanth mentions exactly the same figures of this video (3.9 meters long and up to 300 kg). In the latest book "Wild Cats of the World" of Dr Luke Hunter, he STILL quote that the head-body length of tigers is of 300 cm! So this is something that we most fight during much more time.
2. The video says that male tigers may kill the cubs to make tigresses interested in mate again, but that is a terrible confusion. Male tigers are good fathers, some of them taking care of they cubs at a great level than the social lion. Now, the tigers that kill the cubs are the new and unrelated males, so they should be very specific in that point. Interesting is to say that the old believe that tigresses do not allow males near the cubs at the first days of life is incorrect, as Dr Chundawat observed how "Hairyfoot" shared time with his cubs of only a few weeks old.
I think that all the other information is correct, on average. The case of the "subspecies" I think that is still controversial and is far from be settle, so they are just quoting the last aggremient of the IUCN, although is still not fully resolve.
Finally, about the tiger endurance, all the cats have relatively bad stamina, that is for sure. So what about tigers? Well, they are predators that evolved in close habitats and are not designed for long runs but for short rushes and explosive direct attacks. However, they are also very well adapted to they environment and is a fact that tigers swim huge distances without been tired, even taking prey with them! In fact, the case of the tiger "Genghis" in Ranthambore is very impresive as this male hunted like a cheetah, runing directly to the sambar deers and even killing and draging the large deers in the water. Valmik Thapar says in his book "Tiger: the ultimate guide" that tigers can reach up to sixty miles per hour, altough we know that is for short distances. This means that after the cheetah and probably the puma, tigers are the fastest cats on Earth.
Tigers have good endurance and normally travel big distances. In fact, Dr Chundawat (2018) and Dr McDougal (1977) go against that idea that tigers, specially males, are lazy animals. They found that they constantly travel very big distances to cover they entire territory. So for a male tiger, resting the 20 hours at day that some books quote is not an option, as they need to patrol the entire area, make marks, hunt for them and visit (if posible) they females. Been a male tigers is not an easy task!
I think, that in this there are many opinions, for me that video is pretty much same as rubbish for the reasons, which I have mentioned before. If someone doesn´t have interest to read my earlier comments, mainly the way how things are presented making it easy to mix up biggest possibles and averages in confusing way etc., if not paying attention.
But I would love to see how Thapar justifies that claim about 60 miles per hour. Of course if we take short enough distance, when big cats are in top speed after first speedup.... let´s say 10 meters, maybe lions, leopards and some others would go also 60 miles per hour and cheetah 80 miles per hour.... if talking about peaks what comes to speed.
Speed discussion is one of the controversial ones and different sources give a bit different kind of speeds. But I don´t think, that Thapar has said in his ultimate guide more than his guess about this matter. Or is there some sources about it, that how that speed was calculated? How long time or distance tiger would be able to run that fast? That would be some part of run after some speedup first as mentioned before, or? But also as said, then it should be compared in same way when looking at other big cats, not to commonly told speeds, which most probably are average speeds from longer distance, not just peak in the middle of the run.
But if there is more information about it, that to what that claim is based, it would be interesting to see.
I put this here just to give some reasoning, why I don´t believe Thapar in this matter.
Two quotes:
"The fastest cheetah on Earth has done it again, breaking her previous world record for the 100-meter dash and setting a new best time of 5.95 seconds."
"During a photo shoot with National Geographic Magazine, a cheetah from the Cincinnati Zoo named Sarah covered 100 meters and clocked a peak speed of 61 mph (98 kph)."
I just don´t believe, that any tiger or any other big or small cat could come even close to cheetah, not in speedup and not in peak speed. Btw, 100 meters in 5.95 seconds is in speed 60,50 km/h or 37,7 mph.
