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

[GuateGojira]

(04-05-2017, 12:45 PM)Master Chief Wrote: This is you? https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raul_Valvert

Your degree is Business Administration? Hence, you didn't studied any of important biology courses. Now I can understand why did you wrote Panthera tigris virgata instead of Panthera tigris altaica.

1. The most important fact. Taxonomy of the Amur tiger is not virgata. I think you are using virgata because you believe Caspian and Amur are the same subspecies after having read your posts. You cannot change their scientific name as you want. The western populations are gone anyway. They are only surviving in Northeast Asia today. No one will use virgata even if International Code of Zoological Nomenclature accepts as a single subspecies. Every journals and publication papers are using Panthera tigris altaica. You cannot change and using different taxonomy just because you believe those 2 subspecies are the same. No one will going to accept any publication with wrong taxonomy. This is the most important in zoology and systematics

2. I agree with Amur tiger is smaller than Bengal tiger in wild these days. I believe in you. However, prey biomass is extremely low in Amur tiger habitat. We don't know their size if Amur tiger habitat has a high prey biomass just like in India and Nepal. I would want to see size of the Bengal tiger if they are living in low prey biomass area. The Amur is generally larger than the Bengal If you put in the same prey condition like in zoo.

3. If your conclusion is correct, then it should have been changed in journal 10 years ago. You said they aren't the largest cat, but captivity is opposite as you wrote. It might have been different in wild during early 1900.

Regarding your complains:

1. This is the second time that you attack me because I am not a Biologist, but again, you don't present any evidence regarding the point of the "size", which is the main one. @Apollo made a great point here, and I quote him:

"Studying Biology doesn't make you an authority in the subject of size and weight of Amur and Bengals. They just repeat what they studied in the books. The ones who really worked in the field (capturing and weighing tigers) and Raw data and measurements are the authority"

Following this point, ALL my documents, images and statements follow the studies of THESE people that have actually worked with tigers in the wild. So, again, what is the point in arguing against the "title" of a person? Also, if you study my career, you MUST know the same methods of investigation that Biologist or any other professional use: the Scientific Method, statistical formulas and sampling, etc. etc. etc. Besides, you don't need to be a "rocket science expert" to understand and interpret the results of all the studies of the people that I quoted in this topic. I hope this clarify my point ones for all.

2. Your claim on the "virgata vs altaica" issue is useless. In fact, Dr Driscoll and his team in 2009 were the first ones in showing that the Caspian and the Amur tigers are the same based in genetic studies (probably you already read this document, don't you?). After that, following studies have showed that the affinity of these two populations are true and clear, for example Wilting et al. (2015) proved again that these populations are one and the same and classified them as a single management unit and finally Cooper et al. (2016) showed that all mainland tigers are probably a single subspecies with the same origin and that human interference was the only reason of the fragmentation of the tiger population. I guess that you have already read these documents too....

So, following Driscoll at al. (2009), the Amur tigers should be classified as "virgata". It is interesting that you mention the rules of Taxonomy, however you ignore the fact that "virgata" was established in 1815 and "altaica" until 1844 (both descriptions based in a single specimen, by the way), so Virgata is first and should kept like the main one, BUT all this is already explained in the document of Dr Driscoll, so I "guess" that you probably have not read it yet, I kindly advise you to check the last pages of this paper. However, even this "classic" classification of 8 or 9 subspecies is going to change soon, especially when the evidence provided by the new genetic and morphological studies shows that the morphological differences are just clinal and that the genetic studies shows only TWO subspecies. In this case the Amur tiger is going to be reclassified in the group of the Mainland subspecies (P. t. tigris), but all depends if the "Science of the tiger" is going to follow the "real science" or will stay with the old "political complains".

If you want to argue about the "subspecies" issue, I suggest to read all the documents related to this point first, later to read all my posts regarding this point, and just after that, I invite you to continue with this discussion.

3. Actually, prey base in the old days at Russia was higher that in modern days and indeed produced larger specimens. However, these few reliable specimens do not show a great difference with the Bengal tigers in the past and the present. The skulls are about the size, the size and weight is about the same, so there is no difference in the past and the present between these populations. Now, in the zoos, there is NEVER the same conditions. It depends of the zoo and the managers, the amount of food, the climate and the metabolism of the specimens. Definitely an Indian zoo is not going to give the same food and care than an European or USA zoo, and the comparison in captivity is also unfair, as the only pure Bengal tigers are in India while the pure Amur tigers are in USA and Europe, among others first world zoos.

4. My conclusion is that the Amur and Bengal tigers are and were of the same size (both are the largest cats of the modern days), and like I have showed before, the "journals" still quote the same old mantra despite the results of the scientific studies. Read the email of Dr Goodrich again.

I hope that in your next post, you can actually show information, data or something to support your claims, not only personal attacks and the excuse that "all the books said this....", ok?

Greetings. Reply