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

[palulu]

(08-12-2023, 10:57 PM)Pckts Wrote:

(08-12-2023, 05:47 AM)palulu Wrote:

(08-12-2023, 04:43 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(08-10-2023, 03:18 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: Final reflexion on the topic:

It seems strange and at some point disapointing that at 2023 there is still people that believe in the old ideas that the Amur tigers was not just the biggest of the cats, but that it was by a very significative margin. I will not be surprised if there is people out there that believe that Amur tigers "average" 300 kg or more, or that in fact they measure 4 meters in total length! It is since 1981 that Vratislav Mazák, the famous Zoologist accepted that those figures were not accurate and in his book "Der Tiger" of 1983 he accepted that the heaviest Amur tiger was of 306 kg (captive) and the second one of 270 kg (wild?). However his "love" for the Ussuri tiger population made him denied the fact that at that point there were several ogther figures of Bengal tigers that matched the body size of the biggest Amur tigers in the field.

At the beggining of this topic I made a comparison based in three points: 1 - Skull; 2 - Body size; 3 - Weight. The conclution was that in the skull department the Amur and Bengal tigers had skulls of the same size, in both hunting and scientific records. On the body size, the few body measurements of Amur tigers "in the flesh" showed that they were no larger than modern specimens, only difference was in the chest girth, which was massive in the old specimens. Finally, in the body mass, historic Amur tigers and historic/modern Bengals were the same, while modern Amur ones were lighter, based in the specimens captured by scientists.

However, there are some points that I will like to clarify:

1 -  Skull size:
Mazák biggest skull measured by him was of 383 mm for a male Amur tiger, while the biggest Bengal was of "just" 378 mm. However been honest the difference of 5 mm is nothing, if you see the massiveness of these animals. However, there are other 2 Bengal tiger skulls, measured by Zoologists, that reached 381 mm that were not measured by Mazák, the most important one is the record reported by no other than Dr Charles McDougal, which said that the biggest tiger skull from Nepal that he saw was of 15 inches (381 mm) in total length and 11 inches (279 mm) wide, which is wider than the biggest Amur tiger skull of Mazák with 268 mm. So, it seems that the biggest skulls for both populations are evenly matched. Sadly, Dr McDougal do not provided more measurements for comparison. The skulls of the Amur tigers, however, are more massive and I hypotetizised that is because of the prey that they hunted which is the very impresive wild boar of Russia, this is very appreciable in the skulls of the Caspian tigers and they big sagital crests. However, there is a new paper from this year that said that probably the massiveness is because of the climate and that a more powerfull bite is necesary to eat and cut the freezed meat of the prey killed in the area and not for any other particular reason. I will search the document for all of you. On the average figures, Mazák presented a bigger average for Amur tigers in the skull department, but this could be explained also by the sample size, which is less than that of the Bengal tiger and if you check the other samples that I presented, the average is the same with other specimens are included. So, overall, they have the same skull size, in both males and females.

2 & 3 - Body size and weight:
As I presented my new tables of 2023, you can compare the body sizes and check that they are practically the same. However, the only thing that change is the chest girth of the Amur tigers in modern time. For the Bengal tigers, they have the same size in old and modern records, with only difference that in old ones it was measured "between pegs" but they still reach the 190 cm in head-body for males, while in modern records is of 195-198 cm, a difference so small that suggest that modern scientist in India/Nepal, even when they measure "along the curves" they are not pressing the tape as the old hunters, but trying to follow a straight line, as Dr Sunquist explained. So, here is the table with the body measurements taken by scientists, for males and females. The figures used are just those published in scientific papers for a fair comparison and when the Bengals were measured more than once, I used the average of the figures, just like Kerley et al. (2005) do with the Amur ones. The average weights you already have it here in my two previous posts, so no need to explain further. Here we go:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

As we can see, the body size is the same, the height is the same, just the girths the Bengal surpass the Amur ones, which of course affect the body mass. Is possible that modern Amur tigers weight more than 212 kg? Or course, if the habitat is good with good prey base. But until those measurements are published or confirmed, we can only guess. And even then, do not expect giants as the Amur tiger will be the same as the Bengal one, just that with the same body mass.

You may ask, why I did not make a comparative image? Well, I know that you like my images, but honestly it will be to put two tiger of exactly the same size, so there is nothing impresive to show.

Since the beggining, the intention of this topic is to clarify the issue about the Amur-Bengal tiger size and to show that both are, overall, of the same body size and weight. The claim that the Amur tiger was exceptional in size is incorrect, as the measurements shows otherwise. Currently the Bengal tigers are the heaviest tiger subspecies and the largest wild cat alive, but in the past the Amur tiger match it, but as the skin measurements from Russain reports and the claimed weights of 300 - 385 kg were accepted by many, this fact was ignored. Modern investigations shows the truth, and based in the few reliable old hunting records it seems that the conclution is the same. However, if after ALL this information, there is STILL someone that thinks that my data and my conclusions are not accurate, I think that the scientists have already answered the question, many years ago:
 
1. “Contrary to earlier perceptions, measurements obtained from tigers captured for radiotelemetry studies in the Indian subcontinent (Sunquist 1981; Karanth, unpubl. data) show that they are not smaller than tigers captured in the Russian Far East (Dale Miquelle and John Goodrich, unpubl. data).” K. Ullas Karanth, 2003.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
2. “Surprisingly, while Siberian or Amur tigers have long been thought to be the largest of the subspecies, measurements of tigers from the Russian Far East show they are currently  no larger than the Bengal tigers of the Indian subcontinent [2] (D. Miquelle and J. Goodrich, unpublished data).” Melvin Sunquist, 2010.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
3. “Despite repeated claims in popular literature that members of the Amur population are the largest of all tigers, our measurements on more than fifty captured individuals suggest that their body size is similar to that of Bengal tigers”. Dale Miquelle, 2004 (in Thapar, 2004).

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author
 
4. “Siberian tigers are often considered the largest of the tiger sub-species, although they are in fact about the same size as the Bengal tiger.” WCS-Russia, 2012.
http://www.wcsrussia.org/Wildlife/AmurTi...fault.aspx

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

5. “However, recent data on tigers captured for telemetry studies in Nagarahole (India), Chitwan (Nepal) and in Sikhote-Alin (Russia) show that tigers from these three sites are all about the same size.” K. Ullas Karanth, 2003.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author


Now, if after all this information there is still people that resist to believe, I think that there is no worst blind that the one that do not want to see. 

Greetings to all.

I could not resist, so I made the compaeative image of the body size of the Bengal and the Amur tiger, using modern measurements (based in the documents that I made, and using only 100% published data). On the weights, the same thing, 100% published data for weights and also included the hunting records, based also in my other documents and images. Here it is:

*This image is copyright of its original author

As I said, they are of the same body size, no difference at plain sight. However we can see that the heaviest average is for the old Amur tigers, although the Bengals, if we include the long list of modern weights, will reach the 215 kg, closing the difference.

On the skulls, I added the two skulls of 381 mm actually measured for Bengal tigers, reported by Dr McDougal (1979)and the other one sended by Mr Shillingford to the Indian Museum in Calcutta (Sclater, 1891), and that is why the average is slighty bigger than the one from Mazák (2013). Interestingly when Mr Sterndale measured the skull "between perpendiculars" the size was of 386 mm, but when it was measured with calipers the size was slightly smaller.

Now, here is the new image of the modern tiger populations, following the "subspecies" line, here it is:

*This image is copyright of its original author

For Bengal, Amur, Indochinese and Sundarbans, I used only modern scientific records, but for Malayan and specially Sumatran I used hunting records but where only those that are widelly accepted as realible as is Locke and the figures confirmed by Mazák (2013).

So, here it is, I hope this can close the case, until new figures were published.

Greetings to all.

Respected GuateGojira

You may include these figures for body mass of tigers from north-west India that I discovered in a video. 

1. T-10 young male that weighed 220 kilograms when translocated was again weighed approximately 1yr later and was 258 kilograms this time around.
2. T-12 adult male that was early reported to have weighed 170 kilograms was actually 245 kilograms. I believe there was an old discussion regarding his size. 
3. ST-6 captured in Bharatpur bird sanctuary and released in Sariska was 246 kilograms. 
4. Unknown young adult weighing 270 kilograms empty gut. 
5. T-20 Jumroo adult male that weighed 280 kilograms. I am not sure but this might be already included in your table. There was a discussion where someone said his weight was estimated but the involved parties confirmed the weighing. 

The creator of the video also says that they have found another tiger from the region weighing 260 kilograms. This is said in the pinned comment. 

Let me know what you think. 

MT-3 is not a confirmation. You'd need the ones actually involved with the weighing *vets mentioned* here
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city...136854.cms
It's also mentioned he made a kill on the same day and ate it.

T-07 has numerous claims about his actual size, unfortunately the only published has him at 170kg although none of us think that's correct. That being said, a name and full conversation would be needed for any verification.

T-12 again you'd need a name and verification of exact weight.

And again from Darra, the verbiage of "I guess once during re-collaring" isn't confirmation. 

We know about Ustaads weights although his dimensions don't match his weight so most likely full.

Star was estimated, so he has no true weight although in his prime he certainly could have been a 250kg+ cat. 

270kg male again isn't confirmed and when approximate is used for females as well as data not being from them specifically it's still up for debate. Especially from an assistant professor and not someone involved with the actual capture. 

Jhumroo is confirmed but certainly would have liked more information as well as him stating that field scales can be inaccurate still leaves room for errors to be assessed. 


In conclusion-
We have a few postmortem reports showing dimensions and those dimensions are nothing spectacular for a Bengal Tiger. There's no reason these guys are any larger than the numerous other Tigers we have data on.

Respected Pckts,

Thank you for the comments. To resolve your doubts, I think it's best that you consult the owner of the video as I do not have any particular details. However, I think I can make some points from what I have read here in the forum. 

Quote:It's also mentioned he made a kill on the same day and ate it.

When MT-3 was mentioned to have made a kill, it was right before his death. The 51 kg weight drop (from 243 kilograms recorded in March 2020 to 192 kilograms at the time of his death) happened over 4-5 months. 

Quote:Star was estimated, so he has no true weight although in his prime he certainly could have been a 250kg+ cat.

In the video, at 4:55 minute mark, you can actually see the screencapture showing the involved party confirming that specimen was actually weighed. Good thing they confirmed it, and I am inclined to believe it.

Quote:270kg male again isn't confirmed and when approximate is used for females as well as data not being from them specifically it's still up for debate. Especially from an assistant professor and not someone involved with the actual capture.

I believe the screencaptures of the conversation were posted in the thread, "Modern weights and measurements on wild tigers" and the details were verified. 


Myself, I believe that the information presented in the video was accurate. And I agree it would be better to know the names of gentlemen providing the information on these tigers. Reply