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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)
ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)
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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)
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 (02-17-2015, 07:57 AM)'GrizzlyClaws' Wrote:No, my stupid scale is not precise. It gave me a different weight when I weighed my self 3 different times. Im pretty bummed about it, and I don't have a scale that would weigh such a small amount, maybe there is a app on my iphone. I will check(02-17-2015, 03:24 AM)'Pckts' Wrote:(02-17-2015, 01:20 AM)'GrizzlyClaws' Wrote: Yeah, since tiger is a loner, so it must make a quickest kill as possible. Edit: I found an app for it. I will weigh it when I get home and let you know. :) 
Was this Baikal the same 850 pounds Baikal from the Assiniboine Park?
If it was him, then he must get killed by another giant tiger. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/de...-1.1955267 
1 - BIG GAME SHOOTING IN NEPAL - E.A. SMYTHIES (Chief Conservator of Forests, U.P.)
 *This image is copyright of its original author 2 - DEDICATION If I would say I'm not quite as informed on nobility as others, it would be an understatement. For this reason, I decided to say I never saw a longer introduction than the one below:  *This image is copyright of its original author 3 - THE BOOK It cost me a small fortune, but I decided it was worth it. I got it yesterday and will take some time to read it. My first impression is the book compares to the book of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar and the one written by Sir John Hewett. All three books have a lot on tigers, but both Hewett and the Maharajah of Cooch Behar were more extensive on measurements. Those interested in details, therefore, will be disappointed. This, however, wouldn't hold for length. There are dozens upon dozens of measurements in the book. The book of Smythies has a few very nice maps and photographs and also offers a bit more on Nepal, the Nepalis, the country and its history and, of course, the animals. That'a apart form nobility and shooting, of course. The book I now have belonged to an officer of the Gurkha Rifles who bought or got it in 1947. I will treasure it. 4 - METHODS, MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS In central India, tigers were measured 'between pegs'. In Assam and north-west India, tigers were measured 'over curves'. This was the tradition and hunters adapted to it. Same for Forest Officers, like Smythies. The other way round was also true. Those trained in central India had to adapt to the tradition in the north. If you would have had the opportunity to talk to Sir John Hewett or one of the Maharajah's and said you would have preferred straight line measurements over curve measurements, chances are you would have entered problems. Measurements, more so than in other parts of India, were considered very important. They were taken with great care and considered as absolutely reliable. Questions were seen as inappropiate. And the end a nice career. As to records. The longest shot in Cooch Behar and north-west India were just over 10.5 'over curves'. Hewett wrote the difference between the two methods was 2-5 inches, but the longest shot by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar was 10.5 'over curves' and 9.10 'between pegs'. Averagewise, male tigers in north-west India topped those shot in north-east India by a few inches. My guess is Nepal tigers outaveraged those shot in north-west India by a few inches. Here's a bit more on how tigers were measured (at the end):  *This image is copyright of its original author 5 - PHOTOGRAPHS a - This photograph isn't from the book. I now realize it was the Maharajah of Nepal and therefore posted it. The tiger in the centre is one of the largest I saw. The photograph shows Nepal tigers are a bit different from those in north-west and north-east India. The seem longer and a bit less massive, but I think this could be a misinterpretation. The tiger in the centre, although very large, shows he also was robust:  *This image is copyright of its original author b - This photograph is from the book. It shows the Maharajah with three tigers. The tigress (left) is the longest shot (9.8 'over curves'). The male on the right was one of the longest shot (10.8 'over curves'). The photograph is deceptive:  *This image is copyright of its original author 6 - MORE The next post on the book of Smythies could take a while. I want to read the book first. After that, a few tables will be made. As for Guate's question on the immense 705 lbs. male shot by the Maharajah. There is no photograph, but a plate. There are no details, apart from the fact that the tiger, although heavier than others, wasn't the only one who reached 10.9 (...). What to make of that? Based on what I know about Sir John Hewett, Dunbar Brander and Forest Officers in general (way more reliable than many modern biologists regarding measurements and methods), my conclusion is the record is reliable. Animals we now see as impressive were perhaps a bit more common back then. My guess is the tiger was 10.2-10.4 'between pegs' and robust. Maybe he would have compared to the Sauraha tiger after a feast. A century ago, experienced hunters agreed Indian tigers ranged between 200-700 pounds. My guess is nothing changed regarding exceptions, although one would have expected to see more a century ago. The book also has information on a few strange incidents. Himalayan bears, tigers, wild boars and leopards caught in one hunt and more engaged in conflict than in something else, for example. And then there was the African lions. African lions in Nepal in the 1930s? You mad? No. In those days, you could pretty much do as you pleased with animals when you had money to spare and good contacts. So the Maharajah got his African lions. I don't know how long they had been in Nepal, but I do know they were set free about a months before they were hunted. Set free to be hunted? Yes. The male and the female were shot because they were considered dangerous. So you move an animal to another continent, set it free knowing he knows next to nothing about Nepal and then blame and shoot him for trying to survive by killing cattle? Yes. There's a few things that are not easy to swollow. But one has to remember it was another time and things were a bit different from today. I'll leave it at that. 
that last picture reminds me of this
 *This image is copyright of its original author Madla and Julie, a huge male and possibly one of the biggest tigress in her time..  
Looking forward to your review on the book, Peter.
Thanks for the picture, Wave. From that photo, I extrapolated a body length of about 215-220 cm over curves using the over curves total length. I don't give this value too much weight as its simply a picture and might be idealized. But going from this, it looks like a tiger of a short tail. If the tiger has an average tail, it being around Sauraha's mass is possible and likely. At the same time, there's about 23%-30% variation in the tiger length vs. mass relationship, so if the specimen was on the high end of robusticity 320 kg is possible to a significant degree, but I'd venture to say empty belly it would be more in the 305-310 kg range with extra robusticity and a short tail. @GrizzlyClaws, that's a different Baikal.   (02-19-2015, 07:05 PM)'WaveRiders' Wrote:Is this the plate of the tiger of 705 lb (320 kg)? It seems massive and wide, although not too long (again the tail issue). Peter, if you don't mine, could you put the scan of the page with the description of the 320 kg tiger? I will apreciate it very much. [img]images/smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Like Tigerluver said, I am also looking forward to your review on the book. Greetings.
Who was E. A. Smythies?
Some time ago, I get the idea to know who was this man and his reliability. This time, the easier source give excellent results, check this abstract: “Evelyn Arthur Smythies, CIE (1885 – 1975), was a distinguished forester and philatelist, born of British parents in India. Smythies was an expert on the ecology of Uttarakhand and Nepal. His careful studies of the earliest postage stamps of India, Jammu and Kashmir, Nepal, and Canada produced groundbreaking handbooks on which philatelists rely, even today. Smythies was educated at Clifton College, and received his degree in geology and a diploma in forestry from Oxford in 1908, then served in the Indian Forest Service from 1908 until 1940, based in Nainital. He was Chief Conservator of the Forest of Nepal from 1940 through 1947. Smythies' The Forest Wealth of India appeared in 1924. That same year, with C. G. Trevor he authored Practical Forestry Management. Smythies and Jim Corbett proposed that an area around Ramnagar, Uttarakhand be made a "National Park" to protect the threatened tigers and other living things. These include the tiger, elephant, chital, sambar, nilgai, gharial, King Cobra, Indian muntjac, wild boar, hedgehog, common musk shrew, flying fox, Indian Pangolin, and nearly 600 species of birds. In 1936, the Hailey National Park came into being as India's first National Park. It was renamed the Ramganga National Park after India's Independence, but later it was renamed the Jim Corbett National Park in today's Uttarakhand.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._A._Smythies As we can see, Smythies was by no means a simple “hunter”, he was in every sense of the word, a true “scientist” and in his time, this is the most reliable that you could get. We must take in count that in the old days, the weight of the “word” was way more important than in our days, where you can get pictures, videos and scans, no, in those days, your testimony and your reputation was the only thing that you could show as evidence. In the days of Smythies and far away, the word and the reputation was fundamental, and this man have it, after all, he was an expert on the ecology of north India and Nepal, studied in famous colleges in Britain and together with no other than Jim Corbett, they created the first national park from India, the Jim Corbett National Park! This man, E. A. Smythies, is probably one of the most reliable sources about animals and ecology, so his reports and conclusions should be taken as serious as those other experts like Pocock, without diminishing the hunter records from Hewett and Cooch Behar. We must NOT make the same mistake than V. Mazák, I will talk about this latter.
The “forgotten” record:
As incredible as could be, the record tiger of 320 kg was, in some time, the more reliable on record, but it was “mysteriously” forgotten in the shadows. The blame of this great mistake is no other than Vratislav Mazák. However, how could this been? Well, the problem is that Mazák was “in love” of the Amur tigers and his descriptions are evidence of that. When he claimed that the Amur tigers were the largest of the subspecies, he based his statements in a very poor skull data-base of wild AND captive Amur tigers and he don’t even take the time to measure or investigate the equally (or even larger) great skulls housed in museums of India and Nepal. In the body size and weight, he based his statements in captive specimens too, and the result if the famous table of 1981, that now is used as the “official” data of the size of the tigers. Other great mistake on Mazák was this statement: “No “shooting sport” sources, including R. War’s Records of Big Game, were included”. This was simply ridiculous as his sources for the record Bengal and Amur tigers were, in fact, hunters’ books too, like John Hewett, Jankovskii and Jim Corbett. Why he accepted the record of 306 kg for a “captive” Amur tiger and dismissed the record of 320 kg for a wild tiger, is beyond my logic, especially when the source was as reliable as his other sources for tiger records. After 10 years of studying tigers, I can conclude that the only “reliable” part of Mazák’s table (immortalized in the famous book of Nowell & Jackson (1996)) are the skulls and even them are partial as include captive specimens and ignore the great skulls from Bengal tigers in Indian museums. This abstract from the Zoologist Grzimek is important:  *This image is copyright of its original author Sadly, as far I know, he don’t presented any measurements, but his conclusions are suggestive, as show that the tigers from the Assam region seems larger than those of the Russian Far East, in the skull department at least. However, not all scientists were influenced by Mazák and his biased idea that Amur tigers were the only giants. There is a list of great scientists and biologist that DO accept the record of 320 kg from Nepal, check this out: 1. Trilok Chandra Majupuria - 1981:  *This image is copyright of its original author 2. Guy Mountfort - 1973:  *This image is copyright of its original author 3. Gerard Wood - 1977:  *This image is copyright of its original author 4. George Schaller - 1967:  *This image is copyright of its original author 5. Arjan Singh and John Moorehead - 1999:  *This image is copyright of its original author 6. Tom Brakefield - 1993:  *This image is copyright of its original author 7. Arjan Singh - 1984:  *This image is copyright of its original author 8. Paul Holzmaver:  *This image is copyright of its original author 9. Charles McDougal - 1977:  *This image is copyright of its original author So, if this league of extraordinary gentlemen accepted this record, who are we to simply discredit it, based in the opinion of a single man? Definitely, I am with Schaller, Singh, McDougal and others.
An exceptional weight:
Is important to mention that the length of that tiger was of 328 cm “over curves”, which means that the length “between pegs” was probably between 311 – 314 cm (based in the results from Cooch Behar), barely longer than the Sauraha male with a length of 310 cm. However, the tail issue most be raised here, as the Sauraha had a tail of 113 cm, while the image of this tiger (if that is the image) seems very short, which means that the head-body was relative longer, and probably between 207 – 209 cm between pegs (if we infer that the tail was 1/3 of the length, or maybe a little less, as the image suggest). In conclusion, this tiger seems large, not exceptional, but probably very robust, like those specimens with chest girths of 150 – 160 cm. On the weight issue, a figure of 320 kg seems very impressive and could rise suspicious among some circles, despite the fact that E. A. Smythies was a very reliable person. However, we must take in count the technique to capture tigers, which is the use of baits to lure the great cats. Check this description:  *This image is copyright of its original author We can assume that all the tigers from the hunting records of Nepal were baited, so, in this case, we can “guess” how much food ate that tiger. If we use the study of Dr Sunquist (1981) as surrogate (14 - 19 kg in 24 hours, from baits and natural kills), that male tiger probably weighed about 301 – 306 kg empty, however if we use the maximum figure of 35 kg reported by Dr. McDougal (1977), this male could weight as low as 285 kg, which is also impressive. This means that between 290 to 300 kg seems to be the weight “empty belly” of this giant tiger, which is still about 30 – 40 kg higher than the Sauraha male at 260 kg “empty”. Of course, this are assumptions and educated “guesses”, although based on evidence of course, but for those that want to use the raw data, the male of 328 cm “over curves” and 320 kg of weight, is a true record, from a very reliable sources. Corrected, the result should be a male of 313 cm “straight line” and 300 kg empty, this is my bet. If we use the system used by Slaght et al. (2005) in order to know IF the records are reliable, this is a perfect candidate for the title of "Very Reliable", as it came from a first hand source, it came from a reliable person and it contain data of the body size too. In fact, the "Image" looks too complex and seems to be more like a colored pictured (something normal for those days), even more clear than the image of Baikov and the Amur tiger of 560 lb. Now is your turn folks, what are your opinions about my statements and conclusions? Greetings to all. [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img]  (02-22-2015, 10:20 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote: However, not all scientists were influenced by Mazák and his biased idea that Amur tigers were the only giants. V. Mazak wrote that amur tigers are the biggest, but according to him bengal tigers were the same league. For instance he wrote "not only amur tigers, but also bengal tigers are definitely bigger than lions".
RESPONSES TO POSTS 399-402
1 - POST 399 (description of the 10.9 tiger) Smyhies didn't offer a description of the tiger. There also is no photograph, but a plate. The only remark on this tiger is in the scan I posted. The question is what to make of what is offered. The answer, as far as I am concerned, is reliable. A century ago, tiger hunting was very popular. The size of a tiger wasn't expressed in skull measurements and weight, but in feet and inches (length). Hunters often wanted to impress their peers. The debates that erupted on very large tigers were a result of confusion, meaning it wasn't always clear what method was used and what was measured by whom. After years and years of debates, it was decided that the problem was in the method used. Sterndale (1888) was one of the first who proposed to adopt a new method ('between pegs'). His proposal, after many debates, was more or less adopted, but not by everyone and not everywhere. In northern India, tigers were measured 'over curves' right till the end. The reason was many thought this measurement was more informative and accurate. Most Forest Officers measured tigers 'between pegs' well before the debate on methods started. Smythies, as far as I know, was one of the exceptions in that he too measured tigers 'over curves'. He adapted to the local habits. He had to, as the Maharajah measured tigers 'over curves'. The 10.9 Nepal tiger, although impressive, wasn't the longest I know of. In fact, I doubt if he would get to the top ten. The tiger was exceptional because of his weight. 2 - POST 400 (Smythies) Smythies was a Forest Officer and in my book they don't come much more reliable. Forest Officials were well-trained and knew how to measure a big cat. Many measured big cats 'between pegs' well before the debate on methods (see -1-) started. Smythies adapted to the local habits, but that doesn't mean he didn't know about the differences between both methods. Corbett, Hewett, Smythies and many other well-known hunters and Forest Officers had a lot of experience and agreed the difference between both methods was 2-5 inches when curve measurements were taken with care. In north-eastern India, tigers also were measured 'over curves'. One of the problems of this method is it can be used in different ways. The difference between both methods in Assam was 5-6 inches in a male tiger and 7 inches in the longest shot by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar. Most of us think the difference in north India and Nepal would have been similar, but Corbett, Hewett and many others said it would have been 2-5 inches. Based on everything I read, the Bachelor of Powalgarh and the 10.9 inches Nepal tiger would have been 4-6 inches shorter in a straight line. I think it would have been closer to 4 inches. Another reason to think it would have been closer to 4 inches is my experience. The male Amur tiger I measured was 298,0 cm. in a straight line nearly every time I measured him (the differences between all measurements were within 1 cm.). Straight line measurements are easy: you place markers at the tip of the nose, at the tip of the last bone of the tail and near the insertion of the tail (raise the tail in order to locate the exact position). Then you measure the distance between the markers with a steel tape in a straight line. When measured 'over curves', however, the outcome was different every time (the results ranged between 308,0 and 318,5 cm.). This was a result of the way the method was applied. Even the smallest change resulted in a marked difference. The final result (312,5 cm. 'over curves') was the average of different attempts. The more I used this method, the more consistent the results were. For this reason, I concluded Corbett, Brander, Hewett and others could have been right: the differences between both methods usually are within, say, 4-5 inches. Maybe even a bit less. What I'm saying is it would depend on the experience you have. If a curve-measurement is taken with care, the difference with a straight line measurement is limited, even in large male tigers. From everything I read, I concluded measurements were considered as sacred in northern India. If a hunter would have used his experience to get to a few extra inches and the measurement would have been repeated by his peers, he would have suffered from the consequences of a significant difference. The most likely result, a loss of face, would have been devastating for your reputation (see -3-). For this reason, exaggeration was out of the question. 3 - POST 401 (V. Mazak) I thought you was a bit harsh on Mazak, Guate. Mazak, as you know, was heavily debated in AVA. In the first edition of his book 'Der Tiger', he included measurements of Barclay and Baikov. Some of these were unreliable. His peers told him and Mazak, in the third edition, admitted he had been misled (pp. 183), meaning he had misinformed the public. As a result, Mazak lost a lot of credit (see the last paragraph of -2-). For the third edition of his book, he decided to use his own measurements and records of hunters who had measured tigers 'between pegs' only. In spite of his promise (see pp. 138 of his book in the German translation), many records of tigers measured 'between pegs' were not used, whereas the Bachelor of Powalgarh and the Sungari River tiger, both measured 'over curves', were included. The question, of course, is why Mazak decided to leave his decision on 'pegs' and curves' measurements. My guess is the photographs (both tigers were photographed) had an effect. Mazak also was a bit unclear in that he didn't offer anything on why some records qualified and others did not. The main problem with zoologists and biologists regarding big cats is they are not that interested in measurements and weights. Most of them also do not seem aware of the debates on methods I referred to above (see -1-) and only very few of them invested time in research. The result is they often have no other option but to quote the same sources over and over. The sources they consider unreliable, that is (...). Another result of a lack of interest and knowledge is confusion. I remember a well-known biologist who wrote a measurement taken 'between pegs' is less reliable than a measurement taken 'over curves' (...), meaning he was turning the world upside down. He got away with it and this underlines knowledge regarding methods is limited in modern biologists and zoologists. As for Mazak's alleged preference towards Amur tigers. It could have been a result of what he saw. Amur tigers, apart from a few exceptions, were and are the biggest captive big cats. European zoos didn't have many Indian tigers in the sixties and seventies of the last century. The few Indian tigers Mazak saw were smaller than most Amur tigers. This would have had an effect. It had an effect on me. The Indian tigers I saw in circuses, although large, were smaller than Amur tigers. When I started reading and saw reliable reports on Indian tigers of 10 feet straight and 550 pounds, I was surprised. Same for the size of wild Amur tigers today. Some years ago, I interviewed Tony Hughes. Tony Hughes is an experienced trainer who saved one of the Chipperfields when he was attacked by lions. Regarding the size of captive big cats and their wild relatives, Hughes was way more accurate than others I interviewed. Imagine what I thought when he told me he had seen captive Indian tigers nearly twice the weight of those I had seen. He said most captive Indian tigers compared to most captive African lions, although perhaps a bit longer. Amur tigers are larger than both, but they too didn't compare to the bulky one-employee destruction firms he saw in the UK and the US. They were few and far between, but they were there and they were unreal. Not longer or taller, but much more robust. The ones he saw, in his opinion, would have made very short work of even a decent brown bear. They apparently did (he didn't offer details), as they were taken out of mixed shows. These tigers are now used to breed only. Tony, him has seen a lot. We talked for nearly two complete days. 4 - POST 402 (weight) It is a fallacy to think most tigers shot by well-known hunters in immense shooting parties (5.000-10.000 staff) were baited. In most cases, the tigers they shot had been monitored for years by very experienced people who's only job it was to know what was where and when. They compared to walking encyclopedia's who knew everything one would want to know regarding tigers. Furthermore, in those days, India and Nepal still had immense tracks of wild country inhabited by animals only. I won't say baits were never used, but they had their ways to keep tigers in distinct parts of forest. These men, poor and very modest in their appearance, often were immediately dismissed by those who saw them. But every Maharajah interested in tigers took his 'shikari' more serious than all others when tigers were concerned. I can understand the uproar over tigers of 10 feet and 600-700 pounds (animals of that size, after all, are immense), but every experienced hunter knew there were tigers of that size a century and a half ago. The problem is only very few succeeded in bagging one, because these tigers often were very elusive and experienced. You just didn't get to them. For example. The biggest skull of a Java tiger Hoogerwerf saw was a result of sheer luck (he found his remains). At the start of the 20th century, tigers of that size had been exterminated in most regions. In some wild regions, like Manchuria, parts of central and east India and Nepal, however, one could still see a prehistoric monster every now and then. Bagging one was quite another thing. You needed a lot of experience, skill and patience to find them and a lot of luck to get to them. When you succeeded, there often was no chance to measure them in the proper way, let alone weigh and transport them. If you told your friends about a giant, chances were nobody would have believed you. Maharajah's often had unmolested and well-stocked reserves and the men they needed to find and protect extra-large tigers. At times, they succeeded in delivering a giant, but more often than not they failed. That, however, doesn't mean they were not there. All hunters with experience agreed they were there. 5 - PHOTOGRAPHS 5a - The Maharajah and a three weeks' bag (Nepal). A devastating photograph, but not out of the ordinary in those days. Many shot well over 500 tigers in their life and one Maharajah exceeded 1000:  *This image is copyright of its original author 5b - A large Nepal tiger padded. At first, you think you see two tigers. When you concentrate, you only see one. Nepal tigers often were very long. This one wasn't in the monster category, but he was long:  *This image is copyright of its original author 5c - Bengal and the Sunderbans. Two of the males below were shot in a region just south of Assam. The third was shot just north of the Sunderbans. Not small by any means, in spite of the angle. It shows the decline in size in the Sunderban region happened in a relatively short period of time. As soon as isolation started, things changed. My guess is it wasn't different in other regions. When a giant had been located and shot, chances were tigers of that size would never return. Experienced hunters knew and, for this reason, went after them. Only few succeeded:  *This image is copyright of its original author 5d - Another large male tiger shot in India (1937):  *This image is copyright of its original author 5e - The 10.9 tiger shot in Nepal (Smythies):  *This image is copyright of its original author 5f - Rajaji (first posted by Roflcopters) The region just south of the Himalayas always produced large animals. Have a look at the prints below and try to imagine what he would have weighed:  *This image is copyright of its original author 5g - A scratchmark reaching 10.6 At the moment, I'm reading 'Udjong Kulong - last land of the Javan rhinoceros' (Hoogerwerf, 1970). Hoogerwerf measured foot prints (width) and scratch marks (height) in the thirties and early forties of the last century. Large males ranged between 9-11 cm. in pad width. A pad width of 9 cm. represents a foot print of about 20 cm. in width. Measure it on the floor. The scratch marks he measured ranged between 180-216 cm. in height. Go to a wall and mark 216 cm. This was the height a large male Java tiger reached in the thirties of the last century. Java tigers, judging from their skulls, were decidedly smaller than Indian tigers. The longest skull Hoogerwerf found was 345,50 mm. (the was 350,00 mm. in the late forties, but apparently shrunk with age). In a BBC-documentary on Nepal tigers, they showed scratch marks that reached about 9 feet. Add another foot and a half and go to your wall again. In most houses, you can't get to that height. The hunter who made the photograph below wrote he hunted the tiger who left the scratch mark for a long time. He never got to him. Now ask yourself if 10.9 'over curves' and 705 lbs. was extra-exceptional. It was, of course, but I read reports I consider reliable about tigers exceeding even 12 feet (measured 'over curves'). This was maybe a century before the 10.9 tiger was shot. The people who shot these giants knew what their peers would think. They didn't even try to convince them. Other tried and, as expected, were dismissed as dreamers. Inglis was. He saw a 11.1 male tiger and was amazed to hear that his mentor had shot tigers who dwarfed the 11.1 tiger he saw. Dwarfed. This was not a joker, but a remark from someone he had known for a long time. Not a story-teller, but someone who kept records. Male tigers in northern India averaged just over 9.6 'over curves' back then, he said. But he also said he had shot tigers who dwarfed the 11.1 tiger that amazed Inglis. Can you imagine a tiger that would dwarf the 10.9 Nepal tiger in all respects? No? But they were there. No question. Twelve foot tigers? Only on 'forums', most zoologists would say. There are no skulls suggesting there could have been 11 feet tigers, let alone 12 feet. I have a question for them. Which biologist visited India and talked to those in the know? Who visited all parks and museums and talked to rangers, biologists and hunters? Who visited museums in eastern Russia and northern China and measured skulls? Central Asia then? The answer is not one. But they are the first to dismiss records. It often is, in fact, the first remark in every chapter on size in nearly every book. This in a time when tigers, although on the edge of extinction, still produce 10 feet males exceeding 600 pounds at times:  *This image is copyright of its original author
Thanks for your reply Peter, I really appreciate it. Just a few replays here:
1. The plate looks more like a colored picture than a simple draw. The details are too perfect, so I guess that in fact, it is a photograph. What I still ask to you is the scan of the page where it is mentioned the weight of 705 lb, that is because I normally kept all the images of the records, with special care on the original sources. In this case, I will add that page in my database, together with the plate. I will like to know if the other posters also believe that that "draw" in the plate is probably a colored "photograph" or not; for me, it is just too perfect. 2. I was not "harsh" with Mazák, but I confess that maybe I was a little dramatic. [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img] However, I think is fair to say that the way he constructed that table of 1981 have a lot of problems. In the beginning, I have no problem in accept it, but now that I know that he used the references that he wanted, despite the claim that "no hunting sources" was used, and that he included captive specimens (the worst mistake in the table), I found that the table is very problematic. In fact, even the skulls are problematic, like I say before, why he don't investigated a little more on the large skulls from Nepal and India? those are as large or even slightly larger than those of Manchuria. I still think he is reliable in many ways, but in comparison between Bengal and Amur tigers, I can't take him like the last word. 3. I respect your point of view, in the issue that it is a fallacy to think most tigers shot by well-known hunters in immense shooting parties (5.000-10.000 staff) were baited. Maybe you are right, and based in the discussion with Waveriders and others, it seems that the food intake could be lower than we think. However, the descriptions that I have read about this hunting parties in Nepal, always mention that the tigers were baited, so that directs me to think that all tigers hunted in Nepal seems baited, but probably not gorged. However, as I am very conservative (despite some others claims), I tried to found an explanation about the huge weight of that tiger, and the bait issue seems very plausible. Now, your statements about giant tigers in the past are very plausible too, specially with so many reports that can't be ignored just like that. One final interesting fact, is that this giant tiger of 705 lb was hunted in the Chitwan region, in the same place where the Sauraha male and his relatives lived some time latter. It is possible (or maybe just a wild guess) that the genes of those giant tigers, somehow, lived and were carried by the famous T-105 male and that will explain why there are at least 4 males, captured by scientists, that weighed over 600 lb in that particular area. Peter say: "Twelve foot tigers? Only on 'forums', most zoologists would say. There are no skulls suggesting there could have been 11 feet tigers, let alone 12 feet. I have a question for them. Which biologist visited India and talked to those in the know? Who visited all parks and museums and talked to rangers, biologists and hunters? Who visited museums in eastern Russia and northern China and measured skulls? Central Asia then?" I am 100% agree with that. I will like to see people like Yamaguchi measuring some large Bengal tiger skulls in India and Nepal, before reporting his "conclusions". (02-22-2015, 02:03 PM)'Amnon242' Wrote:Yes, but he also said that "It thus seems that the species has reached its maximum size in the living subspecies P. t. altaica". However, now we know that this is incorrect, in modern and prehistoric times.(02-22-2015, 10:20 AM)'GuateGojira' Wrote: However, not all scientists were influenced by Mazák and his biased idea that Amur tigers were the only giants. |
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