Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur

[Pckts]

(05-03-2015, 11:13 PM)'Amnon242' Wrote:

(05-03-2015, 11:07 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: I don't think that is true, in these images and videos you have something to scale them against, looking at a camera trap image you hardly get the picture of mass. 

While there are large captive siberians, I don't necessarily buy into the idea that siberians get larger there than in the wild. When you dig deeper into actually captive weights, they seem to be nearly the same as wild weights when discussing amurs, even body measurements.

The "300kg" siberians always seem to be obese or at least overweight, wild animals simply can't be built like that, their nothing but muscle when compared to their captive counterpart. 



 

Amur from Duisburg was 300 kg range and he was not obese. The same goes for Baikal, who was almost 400 kg. Also some tigers from Tiger Oasis are in 300 kg range and they dont seem to be obese.

 
I have also seen amur who was 220 kg in the age of 2 (definitely not obese). This tiger has also the potential to hit 300 kg in his prime.
 

 

I wouldn't say they are obese, but I would definitely say they are over weight compared to wild counterparts.
Baikal is still a mystery to me since we don't have any of his body measurements to compare him to. But whenever we compare the body measurements of verified captive specimens to wild ones they don't really differentiate.
The world record for wild amurs is 385kg or so, basically the same as baikal, pretty much. The difference is you can weigh any cative species at any time, its no problem. Very few wild specimens are weighed let a lone weighed numerous times through out the years.
We look at tons of captive amur weights and most are the average of 210kg or so, Baikal or specimens like him are the freaks, but these freaks also exist in the wild. Obviously the more tigers that are alive the more oppurtinities for the "freaks"
So it should be no surprise that as tiger #'s grow so will the "freak" specimens just like before we started hunting them to near extinction.

Edit:
In response to the image
Nice looking boy, but whats his weight and body measurements?
I'm not saying all are obese, just saying most I see that are 300kgs+ seem to be overweight but the boy you posted certainly isn't.
I'd like to know who he is and if weight is verified with measurements so we can compare him to wild caught 300kg+ tigers from the past.

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