Indo-Chinese and Malayan tigers

[GuateGojira]

(03-23-2015, 10:51 PM)'Amnon242' Wrote:

(02-01-2015, 09:42 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote: Using both modern and old records, Bengal tigers seems to average about 210 kg (463 lb). If we use only modern animals, including the Sundarbans, the average seems about 200 kg (440 lb), but if we use only mainland tigers, the average seems to be about  219 kg (483 lb).

I am quoting from memory, so the actual figures could be about one to five kilograms of difference, more or less.

Interestingly, if we join the old and the modern Amur tiger records, they also have an average of about 200 kg overall.
 
 

219 kg average is pretty impressive...decisive advantage against wild amurs and equal to captive amurs...who are very huge felids. I have seen 220-250 kg tigers (including 220 kg bengal - white...btw no fat, just pure muscle) and these animals are really monstrous, especially when you see them in 1 meter distance :-)

BTW what are the data about sundarban tigers? Are they really that small?
 
 

I was able to touch, yes touch, a huge white tiger that weighed no less than 600 lb and probably up to 700 lb as it was HUGE!!! The head of that animal was as long as my forearm which measure c.50 cm, and its tail in the base, was as wide as my arm.

On the Sundarbans issue, the few available data and the testimonies of the people in the area, show that Sundarbans tigers are very small, and contrary to popular knowledge, they population is very small, probably no more than 100 or 200 specimens, in the best case.

The problem with the Sundarbans is that there are no longer large prey species, and add the fact that thanks to the global warming, the mangroves are been flooded with more saline water that affect mammals, like the tiger. It is well known that tigers most drink water with high levels of salt, plus the largest prey that a tiger can found in the area are the chital deer, which in the Sundarbans, don't weight more than 50 or 60 kg. Sundarbans tigers are not living in a paradise, they are living in the edge, and I can even say that they situation is worst than in the Russian Far East.

Now, the other problem are the animals captured, ALL animals captured in the area were frail, underweight and in bad conditions. The only "healty" specimen was an old female of 12 years old that weighed 80 kg. All the captured tigers were in human settlements hunting domestic animals and dogs and that is why they were captured. So, in the body mass department, I would say that we most be very careful, as all the figures present specimens in bad shape. Check these body measurements:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Check that the chest girth of the 72 kg female is just 7 cm larger than the neck girth of the Sauraha male!

Now check some old weights from the 80's or 90's, probably estimations, but still interesting:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Finally, Peter published an abstract from the JBNHS when Burton (1933) presented two specimens from the Sundarbans, the male weighed 172 kg and the female weighed 109 kg. These are small figures, and probably evidence that Sundarbans tigers had been small since many time, but there is a clear tendency to the dwarfism, from 172 kg to 95 kg in modern days.

They are very small, just like the Sumatran tigers, however they weigh as low as Balinese tigers. Something in wrong there and very few studies has been developed in the area, most of them focused in stooping the conflict between humans and tigers.
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