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Poll: Who is the largest tiger?
Amur tiger
Bengal tiger
They are equal
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Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur

SpinoRex Offline
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(01-20-2022, 09:15 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: Body mass of the Bengal tiger - UPDATE:

Ok people, I finally had the time to update the information about the size and weight of the Bengal tiger. I made the entire tables again, measurements and weights, and I corrected some values using new information, specially that from Nepal and re-ordered other specimens depending of they locality. The results do not change to much, specially in the average figures but is important to mention that all the averages are "weighed" this time, so the results are the weighed average of all the populations, including Sundarbans. This is the result:

*This image is copyright of its original author


As you can see, the variation with or without Sundarbans is very few, so we can conclude that overall the historic and modern specimens together had an average of abouth 200 kg in males and 132 kg in females. This values are the one that I used in the new image of all the tiger subspecies/populations. Please check that I use the 5 males from central India that were confirmed to others posters but not by me. I decided to include them but I put a note about that (it says "Yet to confirm") and about the male of 285 kg reported by Dr Jhala, I estimate it at 250 kg "empty" for calculation purposes, but could be heavier definitelly. Also, in the sections were there are too many references you can go the the square below and with the color you can see which are the references for those values.

Now, here is the new updated comparative image of the tiger populations:

*This image is copyright of its original author


Please save this one and delete the old one (check that this one has the WildFact Logo and the date is from 2022). Also the average of the Amur and the Indochinese tigers are weighed too (more details in the Amur tiger figures in a future post). Finally, you can see that in the Bengal tiger section, all the sources are for measurements, the ones of the weights are recorded under Valvert (2022) and is the image above. So the old PDF documents from Scrib that some people still quote is no longer correct or reliable, you can delete it and same only these images from 2022.

Now, as many people do not like the old records because they may include young or old-ill specimens, or simply because they do not believe in them, I made two tables only with modern records, the first is for Bengal only and the second one is a comparison with all the populations where tigers has been captured and weighed, no hunting records  in these ones and certainly only adults over 3 years old.

*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author


So, this is the information that I have for the moment. If I get more data I will updated again. I will like to address something that I think is important, normally we only focus in the average figures but as other poster mentioned, the average may change and are not fix. Other figure that we don't see is the Mode, which is the value that is more common in a sample and from the group that I have I found two modes, one at 190 kg and other at 225 kg. Now, when I made a distribution and frequency table, check what I found:

*This image is copyright of its original author


The biggest number of animals are recorded in the range between 220 - 230 kg, which suggest that most of the prime males are in this area. Also, according the Dr Jhala, adult males over 4 years weight between 200 - 260 kg, and in modern records there are no males less than 180 kg, which again suggest that the value of 200 kg may be an underestimation.

Finally, check that for reliability purposes, the maximum weights accepted are those from the males from Nepal (272+ overall and 261 adjusted), but here is the list of the other specimens that are heavier than them:


*This image is copyright of its original author


This is an screenshot of one of my old posts, there is more information about them. And just to let you know, If I include this exceptional males, the average overall increase only up to 203 kg, so no big deal. I don't take in count the Smithsonian tiger, I will make a post about it soon.

I will like to know more about the males captured in Ranthambore and Tadoba, as those were full grow adult males, but for the moment this is what I have.

Greetings and cheers.

Thanks for the informations.

I generally believe "modern" bengal tigers are around 210 kg or 205 kg idk. I have been active on tigers for a while and the datas are usable but not that kind of stuff were i would say "gotcha" , which i hope happens in the future. As i know Cristiansen provided apparently a sample of 13 Bengal tigers with a weight of 213 kg, 35 African lions with a weight of 203 kg (Both bengals and african lions were mostly wild) and Siberian Tigers with a weight of 227 kg n=17 (50% wild and 50% captive)... the wild ones were 206 kg if i remeber it. But i doubt anyone will do a research just based on body size like Smuts (he did other things as well but you get my point) did on lions. Branders data is maybe comparable but i digress. There arent many tigers to do such kind of intensive study.

IDK if you included it but Habib actually replied someone that he weighed a male of 180 kg and his heaviest was 240 kg, which has to be the RTR tiger named T24 Ustaad. 

Also i noticed the difference between collaring and rescuing, treatment a bit. For collaring they will use standard - big ones or better said those who are "worth" being tracked. Whiles the ones in recues are generally smaller (not always smaller) mainly also bcs of the non terretorial tigers. Thats the conclusion i got from the numbers.

Also idk if you were aware of that but the c.285 kg male of Dr. Jhala was the male named Punchkatta who broke the 225 kg scale when he was weighed. The male was from my enquiries also reliable as Dr. Jhala confirmed it to me. Here is the mail Shadow got from Jhala and the user Khan85 got the weight of c.285 kg.

*This image is copyright of its original author


Also i wouldnt adjust these gorged specimens and just let them with a note. Gorged generally is between 20-30 kg so the estimated empty weight of 250 kg would represent then the minimum empty stomach weight.

Appreciate your work and tables.
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RE: Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur - SpinoRex - 01-26-2022, 02:09 AM



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