B2 and Other Great Tiger Pics from India

[Roflcopters]

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The Hulk of Tadoba.

The size of a tiger is an indicative figure of the size and type of prey base in that particular range. Male tigers reach their primes by 8 or 9 years of age, when they look the biggest in their entire life. While evolution drifts an animal towards larger body size, extinction bias caps that body size. The current size at which tigers are capped is a result of this fragile balance. Additional factors (other than prey size), such as climate, adaptive radiation to prey size, metabolic constraints on islands, inter and intra-specific competition have influenced the growth factor (though the growth wasn't linear across the time line). Following Cope’s rule – lineages tend to increase in body size over evolutionary time, it is understandable that modern day tigers are bigger than their ancestral counterparts such as the Genus Panthera Zydanskyi (Longdan tiger) or the Clade of the Species Panthera Tigris Amoyensis (South China Tiger) and following Bergmann’s rule – species of larger body size are found in colder climates, the Bengal Tiger and Amur tiger are the biggest extant tigers on Earth today. This is in addition to the prey-size. In my observation (substantiated with evolutionary laws) certain tigers (intra –species) have shown the ability to grow to exceptional sizes. As most biologists would concur, tigers spend a whole lot of energy on hunting prey. Tigers don’t hunt smaller prey as the energy required to hunt would outdo the energy they gain from it. The bigger the prey, the longer it lasts and the longer the time needed by a tiger to hunt again. (A genomic imprinting - the genes of a big male tiger being carried forward in the lineages, and not supressed by the female tiger is also responsible for the bulking of tigers). Photographed is the Matkasur male tiger (will talk about his origins later), that is the most dominant tiger of his range, bringing down bigger prey such as Gaurs and Sambhars. He is still a couple of years away from his prime, and my best bets is that he will grow into one of the biggest tigers the range has ever seen. Matkasur male tiger | Tadoba Andhari TR | March 2017.

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Matkasur male and Maya mating - April/2017

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Matkasur and Maya - April/2017

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Matkasur and Maya - April/2017

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after successfully pushing out Namdev, Old Navegon male, Gabbar and other males from his territories. he has one of the biggest territory in the entire park. March/2017

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Matkasur on the move - March/2017

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Bajrang - March/2017

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the giant known as Wagdoh male - March/2017

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Umarpani male - March/2017 Reply