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

[Dr Panthera]

(11-06-2015, 10:33 PM)IGuateGojira Wrote:

(11-06-2015, 05:17 PM)peter Wrote: An interesting question is why Amur tigers have oversized skulls and canines when it is known that Indian tigers (and lions) face and hunt larger animals. Today's Amurs face a lot of competition from hunters, but two centuries ago they didn't hunt very large ungulates as well. The reason is Manchuria and southeast Russia never had them. Not in the last thousands of years, that is. But bears and wild boars were and still are plentiful.

My hypothesis about this phenomenon, posted many times here, is that the large size of the skull and canines of the Amur tiger is an adaptation for the predation on wild boars and even bison.

Let's remember that Amur tigers are no other thing that the western population of the Caspian tigers, which invaded the Caspian region about 10,000 years ago. This tigers specialized in the hunt of wild boars, which in those areas were very large and robust, probably even more dangerous than a large bovids. In this area also exited the European bison and tigers probably hunt them. Under this circumstances, Caspian tigers needed to adapt to this new large prey with stronger skulls and larger sagital crests. This new adaptation was also kept by the "new" Amur population that also hunted large wild boars and that now had the competition of large bears.

If we compare these situations, the tigers in the south east of Asia (India included) did not hunt on "giant" boars (except in some cases in Nepal) and do not have large sized competitors. So, in a wide point of view, this could explain why Amur tigers are so robust and although now they weight as much as African lions, in the past, the large Amur tigers reached the same body weight than Bengal ones and certainly they measure the same in body size.

I totally agree with you Guate, the massive skulls and canines of Amur tigers could be an adaptation to maximize the utilization of the Eurasian wild boar as a staple prey item.
Seidensticker wrote an excellent chapter on tiger predation in the excellent book Riding the Tiger...and showed that tigers have evolved to be forest dwelling excellent hunters of cervids and  suids , historically tigers followed the distribution of fourteen species of deer and three species of pigs, when tigers encountered large bovids some tigers became regular bovid hunters ( Nagarhole, Bandipur, and Assam among others) in other areas tigers completely ignored gaur ( Malaysia) but everywhere tigers exist they heavily prey on cervids and to a lesser degree wild boar ( was or is one of the top two prey to all tiger ecotypes except Bengal ).
The massive skull and long canines enable Amur Tigers of utilizing wild boar up to the massive 200 plus boars more efficiently than wolf packs or bears, this formidable prey is the fourth reason of violent death of tigers in Russia after human aggression, tiger-tiger aggression, and brown bears ( Clayton Miller et al.).
Sumatran tigers also depend largely on wild boar and also possess impressive skulls and canines...their Javan cousins had that as well. Reply