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Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers

SpinoRex Offline
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Weights

First of all i was confirmed that the tigers from Buthan (Near to Assam area, near to Royal Manas NP). From my research they are Himalayan Tigers, which are considered to be one of the biggests looking at some pictures. The weight for adult males was 165 kg, 170 kg, 180 kg and 210 kg. (pers com Buthan Tiger Center)

@Ashutosh The 235 kg male looking at the pictures had a bloated stomach (but not gorged) and was suspected on eating cattle(but either way not for so long but to maintain his condition most likely). Some other males from that area weighed at 192 kg and 172.45 kg (empty stomach) and one was said to be 181 kg but lost the original source.
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United States Pckts Offline
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( This post was last modified: 03-08-2022, 05:40 AM by Pckts )

(03-08-2022, 05:25 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: Weights

First of all i was confirmed that the tigers from Buthan (Near to Assam area, near to Royal Manas NP). From my research they are Himalayan Tigers, which are considered to be one of the biggests looking at some pictures. The weight for adult males was 165 kg, 170 kg, 180 kg and 210 kg. (pers com Buthan Tiger Center)

@Ashutosh The 235 kg male looking at the pictures had a bloated stomach (but not gorged) and was suspected on eating cattle(but either way not for so long but to maintain his condition most likely). Some other males from that area weighed at 192 kg and 172.45 kg (empty stomach) and one was said to be 181 kg but lost the original source.

Unfortunately you had no ages or details mentioned. 
And Bhutan is a different country than Assam with very different landscapes.

Also, What males from what area are you talking about?
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Ashutosh Offline
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@SpinoRex, you need to research some geography before making a post like that. Himalayan tigers are like Amur tigers showing great fluctuations in their weights between seasons. Himalayan tigers from Bhutan are very different looking to Himalayan tigers from Western Nepal and Uttarakhand. 

Manas tigers which are very close to Royal Manas are two different entities. One lives in massive grasslands and wooded forests (like Kaziranga), the other lives in Alpine-like forests with much lesser and smaller prey. I am not saying there is no overlap between them, it isn’t that substantial, though.
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 03-09-2022, 01:32 AM by GuateGojira )

(03-08-2022, 05:25 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: First of all i was confirmed that the tigers from Buthan (Near to Assam area, near to Royal Manas NP). From my research they are Himalayan Tigers, which are considered to be one of the biggests looking at some pictures. The weight for adult males was 165 kg, 170 kg, 180 kg and 210 kg. (pers com Buthan Tiger Center)

Like Ashutosh says, you are making a completelly incorrect assumption here. It is like saying that because Sundarbans is near to the Assam, in comparison with Cental Indian tigers, they are of the same region. In just a couple of kilometers the habitat change a lot in the Indian subcontinent, the Assam is very diffeente from the regions of Bhutan, habitat is completelly different and even prey base is different. 

By they way, who says that Bhutan tigers are big? Based in pictures? are you serious? There is no information about tigers from Bhutan, those are the first 4 weights reported in modern records and in the entire hunting litterature, so we can't make assumptions for the moment. Also, we lack the details of the individuals, age and health status is necessary.

What is interesting is that the body mass is similar to the Indochinese tigers, in males at least:
Indochina male tigers: 181 kg - n=11 - range: 162 - 209.
Bhutan male tigers: 181 kg - n=4 - range: 165 - 210.

Let's see what new information they provide in the future. I also wrote to them, but they do not answered to me. Disappointed
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abhisingh7 Offline
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(03-09-2022, 01:06 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(03-08-2022, 05:25 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: First of all i was confirmed that the tigers from Buthan (Near to Assam area, near to Royal Manas NP). From my research they are Himalayan Tigers, which are considered to be one of the biggests looking at some pictures. The weight for adult males was 165 kg, 170 kg, 180 kg and 210 kg. (pers com Buthan Tiger Center)

Like Ashutosh says, you are making a completelly incorrect assumption here. It is like saying that because Sundarbans is near to the Assam, in comparison with Cental Indian tigers, they are of the same region. In just a couple of kilometers the habitat change a lot in the Indian subcontinent, the Assam is very diffeente from the regions of Bhutan, habitat is completelly different and even prey base is different. 

By they way, who says that Bhutan tigers are big? Based in pictures? are you serious? There is no information about tigers from Bhutan, those are the first 4 weights reported in modern records and in the entire hunting litterature, so we can't make assumptions for the moment. Also, we miss the details of the individuals, age and health status is necessary.

What is interesting is that the body mass is similar to the Indochinese tigers, in males at least:
Indochina male tigers: 181 kg - n=11 - range: 162 - 209.
Bhutan male tigers: 181 kg - n=4 - range: 165 - 210.

Let's see what new information they provide in the future. I also wrote to them, but they do not answered to me. Disappointed
tigers hunted by mahraja of cooch beher were from same vegetation as we have in bhutan and buxa tiger reserve (currently no tiger in buxa tiger reserve). these tigers are among smallest mainland bengal tigers .
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SpinoRex Offline
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(03-08-2022, 09:45 AM)Ashutosh Wrote: @SpinoRex, you need to research some geography before making a post like that. Himalayan tigers are like Amur tigers showing great fluctuations in their weights between seasons. Himalayan tigers from Bhutan are very different looking to Himalayan tigers from Western Nepal and Uttarakhand. 

Manas tigers which are very close to Royal Manas are two different entities. One lives in massive grasslands and wooded forests (like Kaziranga), the other lives in Alpine-like forests with much lesser and smaller prey. I am not saying there is no overlap between them, it isn’t that substantial, though.

Yes i know that. Also they work mainly in the Royal Manas NP as i know. Though some tigers from their page looked huge. 

@GuateGojira The weight may depend heavily on the collared males i guess. I was impressed by some males in the areas as i said before.
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Czech Republic Charger01 Offline
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Population of Bhutan tigers is isolated and very small, only around 100-120 individuals. 

Genetic analysis - 

¨Although the difference in microsatellite markers and combinations used in different studies limit quantitative comparisons to other parts of Bengal tiger range, the amount of genetic diversity observed in our study (He=0.75) is higher than the genetic diversity in Bengal tigers overall (He = 0.72)(Luo et al., 2004) and the tigers on the Indian sub-continent (He = 0.70)(Mondol et al., 2009c). However, the landscapes in the Western Ghats (He = 0.76)(Reddy et al., 2012b) and Central India (He = 0.81)(Sharma et al., 2012) are known to have higher genetic diversity. The nearest Indian tiger populations to Bhutan for which genetic data exist is the Brahmaputra floodplains in Assam 73 (He=0.63) and the Buxa Tiger Reserve (He=0.67) in West Bengal (Borthakur et al., 2013, 2011). Our results suggest that tigers in Bhutan are genetically diverse.¨
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United States Pckts Offline
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(03-09-2022, 01:24 AM)abhisingh7 Wrote:
(03-09-2022, 01:06 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(03-08-2022, 05:25 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: First of all i was confirmed that the tigers from Buthan (Near to Assam area, near to Royal Manas NP). From my research they are Himalayan Tigers, which are considered to be one of the biggests looking at some pictures. The weight for adult males was 165 kg, 170 kg, 180 kg and 210 kg. (pers com Buthan Tiger Center)

Like Ashutosh says, you are making a completelly incorrect assumption here. It is like saying that because Sundarbans is near to the Assam, in comparison with Cental Indian tigers, they are of the same region. In just a couple of kilometers the habitat change a lot in the Indian subcontinent, the Assam is very diffeente from the regions of Bhutan, habitat is completelly different and even prey base is different. 

By they way, who says that Bhutan tigers are big? Based in pictures? are you serious? There is no information about tigers from Bhutan, those are the first 4 weights reported in modern records and in the entire hunting litterature, so we can't make assumptions for the moment. Also, we miss the details of the individuals, age and health status is necessary.

What is interesting is that the body mass is similar to the Indochinese tigers, in males at least:
Indochina male tigers: 181 kg - n=11 - range: 162 - 209.
Bhutan male tigers: 181 kg - n=4 - range: 165 - 210.

Let's see what new information they provide in the future. I also wrote to them, but they do not answered to me. Disappointed
tigers hunted by mahraja of cooch beher were from same vegetation as we have in bhutan and buxa tiger reserve (currently no tiger in buxa tiger reserve). these tigers are among smallest mainland bengal tigers .
Mahraja of Cooch Behar Tigers were quite large. 
https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-brander...he-records
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 03-09-2022, 03:55 AM by GuateGojira )

(03-09-2022, 01:24 AM)abhisingh7 Wrote: tigers hunted by mahraja of cooch beher were from same vegetation as we have in bhutan and buxa tiger reserve (currently no tiger in buxa tiger reserve). these tigers are among smallest mainland bengal tigers .

Cooch Behar was a kingdom in the western part of the Assam region, the habitat was like the one that we see in modern Orang or Kaziranga reserves, based in the few pictures available in the book. However, those specimens hunted in the Indian Duars are the ones that I think you are refering. Duars is a region that is exactly in the border with Bhutan.

The problem is that we don't know the exact locations of the tigers captured in Bhutan (or we will need to check the news reports again for details) and honestly I don't see that the habitat is the same as that from Assam.

Based in the records of the Maharaja, the male tigers hunted in the Duars had an average of 206 kg - n=14 (excluding 4 males full of beef) range=202-225 kg. I don't see that they are smaller than other populations from central or south India.

Edit: I checked the full list of males, including those in the text, and I included other males from the same area, with a total of 14 specimens, none of them "gorged" or "full of beef".
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United States Pckts Offline
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(03-09-2022, 01:47 AM)SpinoRex Wrote:
(03-08-2022, 09:45 AM)Ashutosh Wrote: @SpinoRex, you need to research some geography before making a post like that. Himalayan tigers are like Amur tigers showing great fluctuations in their weights between seasons. Himalayan tigers from Bhutan are very different looking to Himalayan tigers from Western Nepal and Uttarakhand. 

Manas tigers which are very close to Royal Manas are two different entities. One lives in massive grasslands and wooded forests (like Kaziranga), the other lives in Alpine-like forests with much lesser and smaller prey. I am not saying there is no overlap between them, it isn’t that substantial, though.

Yes i know that. Also they work mainly in the Royal Manas NP as i know. Though some tigers from their page looked huge. 

@GuateGojira The weight may depend heavily on the collared males i guess. I was impressed by some males in the areas as i said before.

Here's a Royal Manas female originally posted by Copters that was 160kg

"160kg adult female from Bhutan 

THIMPHU (Kuensel/ANN) – The spotting of an adult female tiger in Kabesa, Thimphu on March 21 came as a big relief to the foresters of the National Tiger Centre (NTC).
Officials say they have been searching for tigers in the vast forests of Royal Manas National Park (RMNP) in Bhutan to collar and study.
Five foresters from the nature conservation division (NCD) rescued the threatened cat at 5am on March 22 in the vicinity. NCD officials said the tiger weighed about 160kg. “It ate a goat carcass and drank well,” an official said.
An official from NCD, Sonam Wangdi, said that the tiger would be kept under observation for a few days at the wildlife clinic at Taba, Thimphu. “There is no sign of injury physically, but we’ll have to conduct some tests to be sure,” he said.
He said that it could likely be relocated once it becomes fit.
NTC’s programme director, Tshering Tempa (PhD), who is also a senior Tiger Biologist, was on his way to Thimphu from Gelephu yesterday. “From preliminary information, we think it is not so old,” Tshering Tempa said.


*This image is copyright of its original author


160kg female from Kabesa, Thimpu."
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India I love cats Offline
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Hello guate, I saw your weight table for Bengal tiger (n=182) averages 199 kg for whole population, it's a reliable table, I hope average will increase in the comming years when we get more Weights, bth I came across another table made by charger for Bengal tiger, he has more specimens in his table and average is 208 kg, can you tell if this table is accurate ? 
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments...tfinal.PNG
This is the graph I was talking about...
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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(03-18-2022, 08:35 PM)I love cats Wrote: Hello guate, I saw your weight table for Bengal tiger (n=182) averages 199 kg for whole population, it's a reliable table, I hope average will increase in the comming years when we get more Weights, bth I came across another table made by charger for Bengal tiger, he has more specimens in his table and average is 208 kg, can you tell if this table is accurate ? 
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments...tfinal.PNG
This is the graph I was talking about...

I will need to read the table to check the details. It will take time but it looks interesting.

About my average, I have a new result is of 201 kg overall, with a sample of 198 males. Averages are fluid and may change depending of the specimens gathered, but for the moment my data give me an average for males of about 200 kg, and this certainly includes young and sick specimens, as hunters did not had the best methods to estimate the age of a sexualy mature specimen.
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Jerricson Offline
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Hello guate , I have quite read your posts regarding weights of lion and tigers and they r quite informative. I just wanted to enquire about madlas (m-125) weight. In one of the documents , its said he weighed around 220-230kg and in another mail from Dr. Raghu Chundawat , he was stated to weigh around 250kg. So whats the final conclusion on his weight??
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 03-24-2022, 12:34 AM by GuateGojira )

(03-22-2022, 09:35 PM)Jerricson Wrote: Hello guate , I have quite read your posts regarding weights of lion and tigers and they r quite informative. I just wanted to enquire about madlas (m-125) weight. In one of the documents , its said he weighed around 220-230kg and in another mail from Dr. Raghu Chundawat , he was stated to weigh around 250kg. So whats the final conclusion on his weight??

On the weight of Madla male - M-125:

Good question and this is something that I wanted to wrote about since some time ago.

As we know, Dr Chundawat managed to observe several male tigers during his 10 years study in Panna, directly and indirectly, but he could capture only two: M-91 and M-125.

Acording with at least two independent sources, both males weighed 250 kg or more, but there are details that we need to check.

Here is the first source from M-91:

*This image is copyright of its original author


The next one is the confirmation via the person that witnesed the weighing (Mike Birkhead) of male M-125 and is supported by the documentary "Tigers in the Emerald Forest":

*This image is copyright of its original author


So, as we can see, both of them are very big male tigers, but Dr Chundawat mentions that they were baited so he adjusted the weights of all his tigers. The book from 2018 "The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Tigers" is the last word on the study of the Panna tigers during the 10 years that Dr Chundawat worked with the tigers. In his book he says that based in visual estimation the stomach content was estimated between 25 - 30 kg. However, there is an important point on this, check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author


So, as we can see the "visual estimation" seems to be exagerated as the actual stomach content was of 19 kg for the largest male, which interestingly match with the averages stablished by Dr Sunquist in Nepal (1981) with ranges between 14 - 19 kg in 24 hours.

And finally this stament is the one that pushed me to investigate all this case:

*This image is copyright of its original author



So, we can see that he says that the biggest tiger was M-91, not M-125, so what about this email?

*This image is copyright of its original author


As we can see, the entire explanation on the email is, in fact, what happen when they weighed the male M-91, not M-125, and that is the confusion. That is something that we can see here:

*This image is copyright of its original author


There it is showed that the real weight of male M-91 "empty" was more than 240 kg, and this because the male bottomed the scale of 250 kg, they knew that the scale could weight 10 kg more (total of 260 kg available by the scale) and taking in count that the tiger ate 19 kg, the final value was of 241 kg, but as there is no form to know how much more the tiger actually weighed, they stated that the empty weight was just over 240 kg.

Now about male M-125 (Madla tiger) its weight is stated between 220 - 230 kg because 20-30 kg is the stomach amount estimated by the workers, but probably the real amount will be the same as the other male, so its empty weight will be 230 kg. There is no other mention if this tiger also bottomed the scale or not, only that male M-91 was bigger. Sadly, we only have one picture of it and apparently the male "Hairyfoot" was even bigger than both of them, probably another cantidate for 260 kg "empty", but sadly it was not captured.

So, this is the conclution based in the facts, the real weight of male M-125 was of 250 kg and that of M-91 was over 260 kg, but when adjusted for stomach content they were calculated at 230 and 240+ kg respectivelly.

Hope this helps to clasify the issue and if no one noticed before, I have been used the 240 kg figure since many months ago.


Is interesting that now the sample of Panna is, for the moment, the largest (talking about numbers) among scientific sources in India, with average figures of 216 kg (n=8; range: 180 - 240+ kg) for males and 129 kg (n=9; range= 105 - 152 kg) for females.
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Pantherinae Offline
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(03-24-2022, 12:30 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(03-22-2022, 09:35 PM)Jerricson Wrote: Hello guate , I have quite read your posts regarding weights of lion and tigers and they r quite informative. I just wanted to enquire about madlas (m-125) weight. In one of the documents , its said he weighed around 220-230kg and in another mail from Dr. Raghu Chundawat , he was stated to weigh around 250kg. So whats the final conclusion on his weight??

On the weight of Madla male - M-125:

Good question and this is something that I wanted to wrote about since some time ago.

As we know, Dr Chundawat managed to observe several male tigers during his 10 years study in Panna, directly and indirectly, but he could capture only two: M-91 and M-125.

Acording with at least two independent sources, both males weighed 250 kg or more, but there are details that we need to check.

Here is the first source from M-91:

*This image is copyright of its original author


The next one is the confirmation via the person that witnesed the weighing (Mike Birkhead) of male M-125 and is supported by the documentary "Tigers in the Emerald Forest":

*This image is copyright of its original author


So, as we can see, both of them are very big male tigers, but Dr Chundawat mentions that they were baited so he adjusted the weights of all his tigers. The book from 2018 "The Rise and Fall of the Emerald Tigers" is the last word on the study of the Panna tigers during the 10 years that Dr Chundawat worked with the tigers. In his book he says that based in visual estimation the stomach content was estimated between 25 - 30 kg. However, there is an important point on this, check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author


So, as we can see the "visual estimation" seems to be exagerated as the actual stomach content was of 19 kg for the largest male, which interestingly match with the averages stablished by Dr Sunquist in Nepal (1981) with ranges between 14 - 19 kg in 24 hours.

And finally this stament is the one that pushed me to investigate all this case:

*This image is copyright of its original author



So, we can see that he says that the biggest tiger was M-91, not M-125, so what about this email?

*This image is copyright of its original author


As we can see, the entire explanation on the email is, in fact, what happen when they weighed the male M-91, not M-125, and that is the confusion. That is something that we can see here:

*This image is copyright of its original author


There it is showed that the real weight of male M-91 "empty" was more than 240 kg, and this because the male bottomed the scale of 250 kg, they knew that the scale could weight 10 kg more (total of 260 kg available by the scale) and taking in count that the tiger ate 19 kg, the final value was of 241 kg, but as there is no form to know how much more the tiger actually weighed, they stated that the empty weight was just over 240 kg.

Now about male M-125 (Madla tiger) its weight is stated between 220 - 230 kg because 20-30 kg is the stomach  amount estimated by the workers, but probably the real amount will be the same as the other male, so its empty weight will be 230 kg. There is no other mention if this tiger also bottomed the scale or not, only that male M-91 was bigger. Sadly, we only have one picture of it and apparently the male "Hairyfoot" was even bigger than both of them, probably another cantidate for 260 kg "empty", but sadly it was not captured.

So, this is the conclution based in the facts, the real weight of male M-125 was of 250 kg and that of M-91 was over 260 kg, but when adjusted for stomach content they were calculated at 230 and 240+ kg respectivelly.

Hope this helps to clasify the issue and if no one noticed before, I have been used the 240 kg figure since many months ago.


Is interesting that now the sample of Panna is, for the moment, the largest (talking about numbers) among scientific sources in India, with average figures of 216 kg (n=8; range: 180 - 240+ kg) for males and 129 kg (n=9; range= 105 - 152 kg) for females.

Fantastic post, thank you.
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