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Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur
Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur
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Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur
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Disturbed Feeding
Every kill site will be disturbed to get the measurements on the amount of food taken from the carcass as long as the tiger can sense your presence before, during or after the procedure. The term unterrupted feeding means if the measurements are taken after one day then it can be termed "undisturbed feeding for a day or disturbed feeding after a day". Same goes for day 2, 3, 4 etc. Both the terms can be used, I hope you get it. Top Predators Tiger is a predator which is in the top of the food chain in its ecosystem. It will feed on any time possible if the food is available at that particular given time. The term tigers feed on night directly correlates to their hunting behaviour. Since majority of the tiger hunts happen during night, they start feeding during night. But when there is a successful day hunt, tigers will feed during day time. Similarly when it comes to baits, tigers would have fed when they reached them. A good example will be tigers like Machali (from Ranthambore), Charger (from Bandhavgarh) etc. Because these tigers ate during day time when provided by the forest officials (without waiting for night fall) . Table  *This image is copyright of its original author In the table we can see that the average first day feeding is less when compared to other days. The reason could be it is higly impossible for a tiger to have the full quota of 24 hrs on the first day of the bait but it will have the whole 24 hrs in the corresponding days. So what you said " However remember that the period of 24 hours of feeding refers basically entirely to the night only as tigers during the day leave the kill to come back in the following evening if they know there is more to eat from it." could be wrong, because the tigers fed more on 2nd, 3rd day because they had more time (the whole 24 hrs). Hence your assumption of tigers basically feed entirely on night cannot be true. So the longer the tiger is exposed to bait the higher the consumption will be in a day. Since the capture is within 10 to 12 hrs from baiting the 14kg (average food intake per day) food intake subtraction is possibly an overestimate. Since we dont have any average hourly feeding data or the time when the tigers actually started feeding from the baits. It is more sensible to take both the highest and lowest feeding averages per day 14Kg and 19Kg and make it to 10 hrs 5.8Kg to 7.9 Kg as suggested by @tigerluver 
From Sunquist (1981) pag. 76
“RESULTS.—Estimates of the amount of food that can be eaten by a single tiger are shown in Table 27. The average quantity consumed in one day may be too low since most of this information was from animals that were disturbed at bait sites. On two occasions the tiger was known to be eating when we arrived. If the tiger is left undisturbed the average amount eaten in two days is more than double that of the first day, suggesting that the one-day value is low. A hungry tiger probably eats more on the first day of feeding than on successive days.” The darting operation implicated a “disturbed kill” similar to the one caused by the weighing of the carcass on the day following the kill. For sure at least the first day of table 27 fully reflects the average of a disturbed kill (also the other days when occurring, but the average after 2 or more days does not necessarily implicate the kill was also disturbed in any day before in principle, although in my opinion it was more often then not the case because of the purpose of the study on feeding habits). The only likely difference was that the darting and weighing operation occurred during the early/mid morning while the weighing of the carcass to study the food habits may likely have generally occurred later, perhaps late morning or even in the early afternoon. For you that makes a lot of difference. For me no because the tiger had already had the kill at disposition for 10-12 hours or so and because for a night kill tigers ate during the night and normally leaves the kill during the day to come back in the following evening if they know there is more to eat from the carcass. When a predator kill he start to eat immediately regardless how much hungry he is. He always eats, and if he is hungry he eats more. Sometimes baits were not killed, because tigers were not interested to kill it, perhaps because they were not hungry, or because baits were not located by the them. Or because they may have not feel comfortable to do it. It is obvious that if a tiger kills during the day it eats during the day as he starts to eat at least something immediately. This is not the case if the tiger has killed in the late afternoon/early evening/night of the day before. In my opinion day 1 of table 27 reasonable reflects on a statistical basis what you could expect the “unsexed” tiger (actually females contributed much more then males to that figure) had eaten on average before the weighing operation if the tigers were located at a kill like when baited. Then that amount of 14,0 kg is not too far from the stomach contents on average (considering metabolic consumption over 10-12 hours, urination, defecation, blood and water drinking). We could discount something perhaps even 2-4 kg. But then we have the issue of males and females differentiation. Bear in mind that according to Sunquist females contributed much more then males to that figure. He states he substantially studied female tigers feeding habits. So those statistically 10-12 kg or so of likely stomach contents at weighing operations can basically be attributed to the adult female class. Corresponding amount for adult males would be 15-18 kg or so on average on a statistical basis and applying Kleiber’s Law like I suggested to get an estimate. WaveRiders 
Next question is this,
what do we do with the bottomed out scale factor? How can we determine what he animal really weighed? Whether 1lb or 100lbs over, it will bottome out a scale. What means do they use to estimate its actually weight? Do they strictly use the scales maximum and deduct from that, do they usually give the animal a generic 20kg limit over the scales maximum, etc? I am curious if its a case by case sceniro and how they determine each case?
Here you can see that the excess materials of a scale only account for 6 extra KGs
 *This image is copyright of its original author That is including the collar, these bottomed out scale weights of 272 minus 14kg for gorged and 6kg for scale weight, they would be 252kg at the absolute minimum. 
The scales used in those projects were likely zero'd accordingly as no author mentioned that as a problem, so one would assume equipment weight was not involved in the measurement. For the most part, I rarely have read abut equipment weight being involved in the measurement across species.
What we do know is that the 600 lb (272 kg) scale was bottomed with either Sauraha M105 and M026 male tigers and that we will never know their exact weights. Therefore the weight of the animals as they were (captured, narcotized and weighed after a whole night, 12 hours or so, more then likely spent feeding at a baited kill) together with the equipment necessary to weigh them was more then 272 kg.
I am not aware of what sort of scale they used. I assume it was either using a spring system or an electronic one. In any case the weight of the equipment must be taken into account either if it was not possible to zero the system once everything was settled to weigh the animal either it was not. Should zero the system be possible, generally the capacity of the scale is reduced accordingly and therefore in that case it would have not been feasible for the scale to read 272 kg any more but a bit less. However I tend to assume that it was not possible to zero the scale and that therefore the weight of the equipment contributed to bottom the scale reading just the maximum 272 kg. Either way it does not make a difference in the concept. WaveRiders A brief summary to make things easier for GuateGojira “to clarify a lot of misconceptions created by Waveriders in the tiger topic”. The issues raised for Chitawan and Nagarahole tiger weights and measurements are probably part of these “many misconceptions”. I just kindly invite him to carefully read at least 5 times my previous posts and the present one in order not to misinterpret my statements and not to twist them. It is not very exciting have to answer to repeat the same concepts again and again. 1) Bottoming a 272 kg scale capacity, Sauraha M105 and M026 male tigers evidently weighed more then 272 kg not accounting for the weighing equipment (likely 4 to 8 kg). Regardless of the scale used being a spring or an electronic one and provided with an adjustable zero, it could therefore be more correctly stated that they weighed more then 264-268 kg or more then 265 kg (rounded figure). 2) I am not aware of any comments of possible estimation of stomach contents in official and/or scientific (peer-reviewed) documents. Nothing appears to have been written on them. The animals have been weighed after have likely spent a whole night, 12 hours or so, feeding at a baited kill. Should this circumstance have actually been the case, as it appears because of the capturing technique using baits if not in some cases after the first capture, it is reasonable to estimate that these two very large male tigers had likely 15-20+ kg of food/liquid contents in the stomach and guts. This estimate comes from have observed adult male tigers in Chitawan NP to eat 56 kg and 57 kg of food in 3 days of undisturbed eating and from a detailed statistics obtained by observation of prevalently adult female tigers feeding habits suggesting an average of 14,0 kg of food eaten in the first day (disturbed kill as for a weighing operation). Following tiger behaviour at a kill the very most if not all of the first day food intake is presumably eaten during the first night after the kill and not during the following day. 3) There are apparently private communications of Sunquist circulated in the web suggesting an estimated weight of 261 kg for the Sauraha male M105 has been obtained from a regression equation using morphological parameters. Another e-mail from Sunquist states that Sauraha Male M105 was captured by him in 1974 and that weighed 258,2 kg. Presumably it is another weight estimate. 4) There is an apparent private communication of Sunquist circulated in the web suggesting he was not struck by belly size while capturing tigers in Nepal and that he thought “they had not yet eaten their fill when captured”. He does not refer specifically to any one tiger, but speaks in general. The implication of this statement in tiger ecology is that when a tiger kills he can spent even 12 hours or so of a night sitting after a kill with little or no feeding. I wonder how this can be confirmed. With Sunquist statement considered valid, the Chitawan tigers have presumably been weighed with no relevant amount of food contents in the stomach. 5) I am not aware of any confirmation from Sunquist, Smith or anybody else involved in the 1970s/1980s tiger study in Nepal that the weight of 261 kg appearing as maximum weight in the N=7 sample of adult males in Smith et al. (1983) is either the weight of an individual different from M105 and M026 that therefore actually scaled 261 kg or the estimated weight of Sauraha M105 suggested by Sunquist or an actual weight of M026 at one of his captures. Should the first case or the third case be true this is an actual weight of either a distinct individual (as I am inclined to believe) or M026. Should the second case be true we do not have 261 kg as the precise figure of maximum recorded weight for a wild tiger in scientific publications. We can only say >272 kg or > ca. 265kg or > ca. 245 kg or whatever. 6) The official document from Dr Tamang (PhD Dissertation, 1982, pag. 63) written under Sunquist supervision states the total length of Sauaraha M105 tiger as long as 3100 mm was measured “along the curves of the back” and that the tail measured 1030 mm. I strongly believe all relevant member of AVA and this board have seen the scanned page of this document reporting the method of measurement. 7) There are apparently private communications of Sunquist circulated in the web referring to the tigers he studied in Chitawan stating the following: a) “Animals were measured in a straight line, between the pegs. We did try to position the animals so that the back was in a straight line, thus avoiding the curves of the back” b) “Straight-line measurements but tried to make sure that animals were straight, reduce the number of curves” I just wonder how an American scientist of Sunquist’ calibre with English mother tongue could provide answers with such syntax errors and bizarre way to explain himself. 8) In the book “Tigers” Karanth (2003, pag 47) writes “most biologists now measure the length of tigers along the contours of the spine from the tip of the nose to the end of the tails”. His statement would implicate that the Nagarahole tigers he studied during late 1980s and early 1990s have been measured along the curves of the back, in accordance with the official document highlighted above from Tamang (1982) describing how the Chitawan tigers have been measured. This would not be a surprise as Karanth began to study tigers under Sunquist teaching and supervision. As much as I can recall, this is I what we know. I have tried not to provide personal interpretation or comments unless really forced to do it. In previous threads I have seen contorted way to explain that the official document from Tamang (1982) made under Sunquist teaching and supervision does not count, that only the private e-mails from Sunquist count (!), that Karanth does not know how to measure a tiger as he measured only 2 of them, that Karanth did not realize what he was doing when he measured a tiger, that Karanth misinterpreted himself (!) and so on. All of that is very bizarre. WaveRiders
Not enough time to respond to everything. One, spring scales are easily zero'd, they come with an adjustment. Two, Sauraha was tracked last capture via personal communication of Guate's. Three, why do you believe it is best to assume tigers got to the bait immediately after setup? 261 kg is a chest girth estimate. The baits used were snack sized to big males, falling under the snack and not feast or famine category of tiger eating, explaining the lack of gorging.
Piecing the emails together and your citations, one could go along the contours and produce a between pegs measurement if everything is straightened out and the tape is not sticking to the body in each slight curve. I don't have those sources to interpret as well as Guate can. Lastly, if you've ever conversed with Dr. Sunquist, his responses are short and sweet with that style. Most professors don't have the time to respond, and when they do, it's short.  (02-12-2015, 05:49 PM)'WaveRiders' Wrote:This post is laughable and a pour intent to provoke me. I not going to fall on this Waveriders, but I will answer to this. 1. The scale used was a spring scale, no digital scale was used in those days. I personally talked with butchers that still use this type of scales (not exactly equal, but very similar) and they told me that the minimum difference can range between 5 to 10 kg, depending of the style of the scale. That was the safe range that I used. In this case, the big males M105 and M126 weighed no less than 260 kg, that is sure, even taking in count a food intake of 14-19 kg. 2. In the point No. 2 is where you twist the things. The animals spend LESS than 10 hours in the kill, and although I also estimated a stomach content of 14-19 kg for the males, at the end, the evidence and the time of the bait-feeding suggest a lower food intake. The problem here is that you are using figures of UNDISTURBED kills when the animals were capture in DISTURBED kills. It doesn’t matter how many food a tiger can eat if at the end, about 14 kg seems to be the average for disturbed kills, which was the case in ALL the captures. However, while you stated otherwise in previous posts, you correct it here, probably because you already saw your mistake and you know that I will show it right now. Finally, you have no evidence to say that tigers ate most of the prey in the first night, that is just inference, but at the end, plausible. Finally, on this point, it was Dr Sunquist himself who suggest using the figure of 14 kg, knowing that this is the correct figure for tigers in about 24 hours, from baits and natural kills. 3. The official calculation from Sauraha male was of 261 kg, and guess what, that was from a personal communication with ME. According with you, I was using emails from other people, but well, here is an email from Sunquist to me, directly. Let’s see what other excuse you have for this. The estimation of 258.2 kg was probably just another estimation, however, the figure of 261 kg has been confirmed twice, which add weigh to its reliability. 4. Again the word “apparent”. So, only your “evidence” is reliable??? Well, if at least you presented some evidence… His statement (Sunquist) ARE valid, after all, he weighed those tigers. Where is the point in dismissing his words??? 5. The weight of 261 kg is from the Sauraha male, the evidence is in Smith et al. 1983. If you read that document (other 5 times maybe?), you will see that the tigers in those samples were captured between 1973 and 1980. The male M126 and the other two large males were weighed after that dates. The only large male weighed in that range was Sauraha, so the weight of 261 kg can only be from “him”. Besides, in the document it is said that a male died drowning, so this is the Sauraha male. 2 + 2 = 4, do you get it? 6. The document-image posted in AVA is from Tamang, but the man that actually measured the tigers was Dr Sunquist, so I believe in him. Dr Sunquist told me (in another email, but you don’t like them, sadly) that he don’t remembered were that image came, but he only said that the numbers were correct, although the method described not. Besides, at the end, along the curves doesn’t mean “over the curves”, like the hunter’s method. It just means over the back, and although it is omitted the word “straight”, Sunquist clearly say it, to THREE people (Bold, Paul and me) the same thing. Do you think he is lying? If so, why??? 7. If you are trying to suggest that those emails were false, well, ask that to him directly. Also, ask to the posters that received those emails, like Damon (Bold Cham and lion-fan), Paul (KingTheropod and tiger-fan) and of course me. When you ask something by email, the answers are normally short and direct, not a huge dissertation, especially for such an irrelevant topic (for them, at least). By the way, where is the “bizarre” explanation, his words are simple, just that. I dare you to write him and ask him about this, and also, ask the other posters too, specially to Bold Champ, which been a lion fan is probably a good friend from you. 8. About Dr Karanth, I have already explained his motives about why he writes that. He doesn’t want to be compared to any hunter, and to use the same method like other hunters will be simply silly. Again, along the contours, or along the spine doesn’t mean the “over curves” method, just that the tape is straight along the contours, not following them. Big misconception of the method Waveriders. On the final issue (no number), you definitely filled this only with your personal interpretations, if not, why you used the words “apparent” or “I am not aware” in all your phrases here? Finally, the document of “Tamang” was made by “Tamang”, and although Sunquist teach him, that doesn’t mean that it had his words. IF you have made a thesis (or reviewed one, if you are already graduated), you most know that they don’t take a review in every single word, they read the thesis overall and make you corrections, but little specific words are not always corrected. You should know that, don’t try to sin of perfection. Besides, Sunquist emails are perfectly reliable and if you don’t believe in them, that is your problem dude. In fact, Karanth know how to measure tigers, no one had say that he doesn’t. He never misinterpreted “himself”. YOUR words are the bizarre ones, as no one have say anything of this. Karanth measured his tigers along the contours, but not over the curves, following each contour joining the tape in every single curve, like the hunters method. He only put the tape along the body, in a straight line, and measured its animals from nose to tail. Why you have omitted this? (02-09-2015, 05:17 AM)'WaveRiders' Wrote: From Sunquist (1981) pag. 76 Other than your weight estimates this post of yours clearly explains what Ive been saying in my previous post. That is "The longer the tiger is exposed to bait the higher the consumption will be in a day". So it clearly boils down to the time available for a tiger to feed on the bait. In this post you clearly mentioned that the disturbed bait sites will have lower consumption than the undisturbed bait sites. But you used the 3 days undisturbed feeding figures in your calculations to find the average 1 day disturbed feeding, thus your claims unfortunately contradicts each other. Quote:In any case I prefer to stick to my consideration as far as Chitawan tiger weights from Sunquist (1981) and Smith et al. (1983) is concerned rather then doing nothing at all. That was a clear case of baited animals and 12/18 hours of uninterrupted feeding This is a quote from one of your previous posts, I use this as an example to show that before @GuateGojira showed that the time available for feeding is not more than 10 hrs before capture, you never mentioned about night feeding but instead you highlighted about 18 hrs of uninterrupted feeding. But once Guate showed the time was much less then you started using the term tigers entirely feed on nights. If you assume that tigers entirely feed on night than why use the term 18hrs uninteruppted feeding in the first place. Quote:However remember that the period of 24 hours of feeding refers basically entirely to the night only as tigers during the day leave the kill to come back in the following evening if they know there is more to eat from it. Unfortunately your assumption of tigers entirely feed on night fails because the data in the table 27 shows diifferent results. The tigers fed more on 2nd, 3rd day because they had more time. Regarding tiger behaviour, Tigers generally hunt and patrol their territory during night hours. But tigers feed throughout the whole day whenever they wanted to no matter the kill was made in night or day, they generally avoid travelling long distances during day time. Being the top predator there is no danger of losing the kill to another animal other than to another tiger, hence there is no specific feeding pattern. When it comes to food intake myself, @GuateGojira and @tigerluver , kept are methods and calculations very simple. Guate --> used an average of 14Kg as said by Mr.Sunquist Tigerluver --> the average intake reported of 14 kg/24 hr (disregarding portions of bait no actually eaten by the tiger), for 10hrs eaten 5.8 kg. Tigerluver also made an execellent point on the Standard deviation values from table 27 "I just noticed something on the standard deviation. That number is relatively quite low for all days. Either all the tigers were about the same size in the sample (unlikely, I'm sure even if the sample size was female biased there would be some males in there), or size does not matter as much as we thought for food intake and cats avoid gorging. To have a standard deviation that low, either almost every tiger gorges or almost every tiger does not gorge. 14 kg is not a gorged figure, so I'd conclude the latter." Myself --> I took both the highest and lowest feeding averages per day 14Kg and 19Kg and make it to 10 hrs 5.8Kg to 7.9 Kg But unfortunately you dont seem to be satisfied with these values because it involves both genders. Hence I thought of using your values and perform a calculation. IMO this food intake estimate should be mathematically closer to the actual figure. Average food intake for males during the time of capture Im using your values of 2 males eat 56 kg and 57 kg of meat respectively in 3 days. So the average undisturbed feeding per day is 18.7 kg/day and 19.0 kg /day But since we dont have a value for average disturbed feeding per day. I thought of using the table 27 *This image is copyright of its original author In this table if you add the average consumption for the first 3 days we are getting 14+17.6+15.3 = 46.9 And for this total day 1 accounts for 29.8% , day 2 accounts for 37.5% and day 3 accounts for 32.6% lets roundup day 1 to 30% So for 56Kg, the average disturbed feeding for day 1 is 16.8Kg for 57Kg, the average disturbed feeding for day 1 is 17.1Kg We have to remember we dont have any average hourly feeding data or the time when the tigers actually started feeding from the baits So the average food intake for males before capture (10hrs from baiting) is 7Kg to 7.1Kg. For the average stomach content available in males during capture we need to subtract the values of digestion, excretion and metabolism I would appreciate more new data and evidence instead of repeating stuffs and going in circles
The term "uninterupted feeding" is very misleading.
There are numerous occasions where tigers will feed on a Kill for 30 minutes or so, in a matter of 24hrs. Also occasions where they may sit by a carcass for hours, but only feed for 30 minutes or so, etc. Other occasions where they will leave the carcass and scavengers will come from all over. Just more of a reason to not include "gorged weight" since its so subjective. IMO 
This thread has been made to debate and discuss on body size, weight, skull size, current condition, etc.. of modern Bengal and modern Amur tigers by comparing each other. I believe currently @peter has best data when comparing these 2 sub-species of modern age. But my Intention is to invite Russian (Far east) friends who visit our forum and have enough expertise to say something specially about Amur tigers.
So first of all, In this topic I would like to invite Russian friends who are tiger experts. I request them to join the forum and put your valuable view. I also like to invite all other people who can put something informative here with regards to modern Amur and Bengal tigers. As we know that Modern Bengal tigers are heavier than Amur cousin. But if we talk about body dimension I think Amur tiger on an average still taller and longer than Bengal tiger. Also their head skull is bigger than Bengal counter part. Into the wild Siberian (Amur) tigers are not that big, But a well fed Amur tiger in captivity grows very large in size. So, Put your view and thought regarding the topic but ALWAYS REMEMBER THE FORUM RULES. 
As far as I know captive amur tigers are around 215 kg, so they are basically of the same weight as wild bengal tigers. We know that captive tigers are usually smaller than wild ones, so wild amur tigers should be even heavier. On the other hand current wild amurs are around 190 kg, but this is probably due to insufficient prey base. I think that in good conditions wild amurs would be of the same weight as wild bengals or perhaps somewhat heavier. They would be taller and longer, but bengals would be more muscular.
Almost all sources say that amur tigers are the largest felids today. The realitiy is more complicated as bengals are heavier, but that statement is not essentially wrong.
Bengals are just as long and tall as amurs, limited skull data but to my knowledge the largest skull ever measured actually belongs to the bengal and same with canine length, shoulder height and body length.
Also @sanjay you may just want to remove this thread since we already have a good one going with a ton of data started by @guate http://wildfact.com/forum/topic-who-is-t...the-tigers
I can't say much about it. I believe on your word more than mine, Since you have seen them.
But on seeing Amur tigers from herbin and some other places, I think they may be heavier than 215, may be 230-240 kg range. May be it is just illusion and they look more taller, longer and thicker but their weight may be under 215 kg. |
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