The 'tiger' (''Panthera tigris'') is a
mammal of the
Felidae family, one of four "
big cats" in the ''
Panthera''
genus. Native to the mainland of
Asia, the tiger is an
apex predator and the largest feline
species[1] in the world,
[2][ Lesson 5, Kids for Tigers.] comparable in size to the biggest fossil felids.
[Cat Specialist Group.] The
Bengal Tiger is the most common subspecies of tiger, constituting approximately 80% of the entire tiger population, and is found in
India,
Bangladesh,
Bhutan,
Myanmar, and
Nepal. It is the national animal of
India. An
endangered species, the majority of the world's tigers now live in captivity.
[3]
Biology and ecology
Description
Tigers are the heaviest cats found in the wild
[4] but the subspecies differ strongly in size, tending to increase proportionally with
latitude, as predicted by
Bergmann's Rule. Large male
Siberian Tigers (''Panthera tigris altaica'') can reach a total length of 3.5 m and a weight of 306
kg[5]. Apart from those exceptional large individuals, male siberian tigers usually have a head and body length of 190–220 cm and an average weight of 227 kg
[6] (The tail of a tiger is 60–110 cm long.) The heaviest Indian Tiger (''P. t. tigris'') mentioned in literature weighed 389 kg (857 lb), the heaviest Siberian tiger (''P. t. altaica'') 384 kg.
[7] Females are smaller, those of the Siberian or Indian subspecies weigh only between 110 and 181 kg. Isle tigers like the Sumatran subspecies (''P. t. sumatrae'') are much smaller than mainland tigers and weigh usually only 100–160 kg in males and 80–110 kg in females. The extinct
Bali Tiger (''P. t. balica'') was even smaller with a weight of 90–100 kg in males and 65–80 kg in females.
Tigers have rusty-reddish to brown-rusty coats, a fair (whitish) medial and ventral area and stripes that vary from brown or hay to pure black. The form and density of stripes differs between subspecies, but most tigers have in excess of 100 stripes. The pattern of stripes is unique to each animal, and thus could potentially be used to identify individuals, much in the same way as
fingerprints are used to identify people. This is not, however, a preferred method of identification, due to the difficulty of recording the stripe pattern of a wild tiger. It seems likely that the function of stripes is
camouflage, serving to hide these animals from their prey. The stripe pattern is found on a tiger's skin and if shaved, its distinctive camouflage pattern would be preserved.
Like most cats, tigers are believed to have some degree of
colour vision.
[8]
There is a well-known mutation that produces the
white tiger, an animal which is rare in the wild, but widely bred in zoos due to its popularity. The white tiger is not a separate sub-species, but only a colour variation. There are also unconfirmed reports of a
"blue" or slate-coloured tiger, and largely or totally
black tigers, and these are assumed, if real, to be intermittent mutations rather than distinct species. Similar to the
lion, the tiger has the ability to
roar.
Sumatran tiger doing a flehmen
Home range
Adult tigers are fiercely territorial. The size of a tiger's home range mainly depends on prey abundance, and, in the case of male tigers, on access to females. A tigress may have a territory of 20
km² while the territories of males are much larger, covering 60–100 km². While females can at times be aggressive towards other females, their territories can overlap and they do tolerate each other. Males, however, are usually intolerant of other males within their territory. Because of their aggressive nature, territorial disputes can be violent, and may end in the death of one of the males. To identify his territory, the male marks trees by
spraying urine and anal gland secretions on trees as well as by marking trails with
scat. Males show a grimacing face, called the
Flehmen response, when identifying a female's reproductive condition by sniffing their urine markings.
Male tigers can mingle easily with females in their territories and will even share kills.
George Schaller observed a male tiger share a kill with two females and four cubs. Females are often reluctant to let males near their cubs, but Schaller saw that these females made no effort to protect or keep their cubs from the male. This suggests that the male might have been the father of the cubs. In contrast to male lions, male tigers will allow the females and cubs to feed on the kill first. Females will also share kills, even more so than the males. They are also much more tolerant of sharing kills with individuals of the same sex.
Tigers have been studied in the wild using a variety of techniques. The populations of tigers were estimated in the past using plaster casts of their
pugmarks. In recent times, camera trapping has been used instead. Newer techniques based on
DNA from their scat are also being evaluated. Radio collaring has also been a popular approach to tracking them for study in the wild.
Reproduction
A female is only receptive for a few days and
mating is frequent during that time period. A pair will copulate frequently and noisily, like other cats. The gestation period is 103 days and 3–4 cubs of about 1 kg (2 lb) each are born. The females rear them alone. Wandering male tigers may kill cubs to make the female receptive. At 8 weeks, the cubs are ready to follow their mother out of the den. The cubs become independent around 18 months of age, but it is not until they are around 2–2½ years old that they leave their mother. The cubs reach sexual maturity by 3–4 years of age. The female tigers generally own territory near their mother, while males tend to wander in search of territory, which they acquire by fighting and eliminating another male. Over the course of her life, a female tiger will give birth to an approximately equal number of male and female cubs. Tigers breed well in captivity, and the captive population in the United States may rival the wild population of the world.
Habitat
Tigers are found in a variety of habitats, from
tropical rainforests and
boreal forests to dry
savannas as they are found in
Ranthambore National Park. Compared to the lion, the tiger prefers more dense vegetation, for which its camouflage is ideally suited, and where a single predator is not at a disadvantage compared to a pride. Among the big cats, only the tiger and
jaguar are strong
swimmers; tigers are often found bathing in
ponds,
lakes, and
rivers.
Food
Tiger dentition. The large canines are used to make the killing bite, but they tear meat when feeding using the carnassial teeth
In the wild, tigers mostly feed on larger and medium sized
animals.
Sambar,
gaur,
water buffalo,
chital,
wild boar and
nilgai are the tiger's favored prey in
India. In Siberia the main prey species are
Mandchurian elk, wild boar,
sika deer,
roe deer and
musk deer. In Sumatra;
rusa deer, wild boar and
Malayan tapir are preyed on. Like many predators, they are opportunistic and will eat much smaller prey such as as
monkeys,
peacocks,
hares and
fish.
They also may kill such formidable predators as
dholes,
leopards, and
pythons. Tigers have been known to kill even
crocodiles on occasion,
[9][10][11] although predation is rare and the predators typically avoid one another.
Siberian tigers and
brown bears are a serious threat to each other and usually avoid confrotation; however, tigers will kill bear cubs and even adult brown bears on occasion. Bears (
Asiatic black bears and
brown bears) make up 5-8% of the tigers diet in the
Russian Far East.
[5] Sloth bears are quite aggressive and will sometimes drive tigers away from their kills although the opposite happens as well and in some cases Indian tigers even prey on sloth bears.
[5]
Adult
elephants are too dangerous to tigers to serve as common prey, but conflicts between elephants and tigers do sometimes take place. A case where a tiger killed an adult female
Indian rhino has been observed
[14] Young elephant and rhino calves are occasionally taken.
Tigers sometimes prey on domestic animals such as dogs, cows, horses and donkeys. These individuals are termed cattle-lifters or cattle-killers in contrast to typical game-killers. Especially old and injured tigers have have been known to attack
humans and are then termed as man-eaters, which often leads to them being captured, shot or poisoned. The
Sundarbans mangrove swamps of
Bengal, where some healthy tigers have been known to hunt humans, have had a higher incidence of man-eaters.
Hunting methods
Hunting Tiger
Tigers' extremely strong jaws and sharp teeth make them superb predators.
Tigers hunt alone and prefer medium to large sized
herbivores. They ambush their prey as other cats do, overpowering them from any angle, using their body size and strength to knock large prey off balance. Even with their great masses, tigers can reach speeds of about 49-65
km/h (35-40
mph). Tigers prefer to bite the throats of large prey and use their muscled forelimbs to hold onto the prey, bringing it to the ground. The tiger remains latched onto the neck until its prey dies. With small prey, the tiger bites the
nape, often breaking the
spinal cord, piercing the
windpipe, or severing the
jugular vein or
carotid artery. The prey is killed instantly.
In the wild, tigers can leap as high as 5 m (16 ft) and as far as 9–10 m (30–33 ft), making them one of the highest-jumping mammals (just slightly behind
cougars in jumping ability).
They have been reported to carry domestic livestock weighing 50 kg (110 lb) while easily jumping over fences 2 m (6 ft 6 in) high. Their heavily muscled forelimbs are used to hold tightly onto the prey and to avoid being dislodged, especially by large prey such as gaurs. Gaurs and water buffalos weighing over a ton have been killed by tigers weighing about a sixth as much. The combination of claws and power behind a tiger's paws enables it to kill an adult human with one swipe.
[15]
Extinction risk
Main articles: Tiger hunting
Tiger headcount in 1990
s are the tiger's most significant predator, as tigers are often poached illegally for their
fur. Many Indian tigers' parts found their way to Tibet, where they were widely used for making traditional costumes.
At the
Kalachakra Tibetan Buddhist festival in south India in January 2006 the
Dalai Lama preached a ruling against using, selling, or buying wild animals, their products, or derivatives. The result when Tibetan pilgrims returned to Tibet afterwards was much destruction by Tibetans of their wild animal skins including tiger and
leopard skins used as ornamental garments. It has yet to be seen whether this will result in a long-term slump in the demand for poached tiger and leopard skins.
[16][17][18]
Their bones and nearly all body parts are used in
traditional Chinese medicine for a range of purported uses including pain killers and
aphrodisiacs. The use of tiger parts in pharmaceutical drugs in China is already banned. China has even made some offenses in connection with Tiger poaching punishable by death. Though it has been made illegal, China's wealthy businessmen are known to eat Tiger penis as they feel it is an aphrodisiac.
[1].
Poaching for fur and destruction of
habitat have greatly reduced tiger populations in the wild. A century ago, it is estimated there were over 100,000 tigers in the world but the population has dwindled to between 7,000 and 5,000 tigers.
[19] Some estimates suggest the population is even lower at less than 2,500 mature breeding individuals, with no subpopulation
containing more than 250 mature breeding individuals.
The threat of extinction is mitigated somewhat by the presence of some 20,000 tigers currently in captivity,
[20] although parts of the captive population (eg. the 4-5,000 animals in China's commercial tiger farms) is of very low genetic diversity and can be of little use in keeping the species alive.
Subspecies
There are nine recent
subspecies of tiger, three of which are
extinct and one of which is almost certain to become
extinct in the near future. Their historical range (severely diminished today) ran through
Russia,
Siberia,
Iran,
Afghanistan,
India,
China and
south-east Asia, including the
Indonesian islands. These are the surviving subspecies, in descending order of wild population:
Bengal tiger
★ The '
Bengal tiger' or the 'Royal Bengal tiger' (''Panthera tigris tigris'') is found in parts of
India,
Bangladesh,
Nepal,
Bhutan and
Myanmar. It lives in varied habitats: grasslands, subtropical and tropical rainforests, scrub forests, wet and dry deciduous forests and mangroves. The Indian government's estimated population figure for these tigers is between 3,100 and 4,500, some 3,000 of which are found in India alone. However, many Indian tiger conservationists doubt this number, seeing it as overly optimistic. The number of Bengal tigers in India may be fewer than 2,000,
[21] as most of the collected statistics are based on pugmark identification, which often gives a biased result. Even though this is the most 'common' tiger, these tigers are under severe pressure from both habitat destruction and poaching. In
1972, India launched a massive wildlife conservation project, known as
Project Tiger, to protect the depleting numbers of tigers in India. The project helped increase the population of these tigers from 1,200 in the
1970s to 3,000 in the
1990s and is considered as one of the most successful wildlife conservation programs. At least one Tiger Reserve (
Sariska) has lost its entire tiger population to poaching.
[22] Males in the wild usually weigh 205 to 227 kg (450–500 lb), while the average female will weigh about 141 kg.
[23] However, the northern Indian and the Nepalese Bengal tigers are supposed to be somewhat bulkier than those found in the south of the Indian Subcontinent, with males averaging around 520 lbs (236 kg).
[23]
Indochinese Tiger
★ The '
Indochinese tiger' (''Panthera tigris corbetti''), also called ''Corbett's'' tiger, is found in
Cambodia, China,
Laos,
Myanmar,
Thailand, and
Vietnam. Estimates of its population vary between 1,200 to 1,800, but it seems likely that the number is in the lower part of the range. The largest current population is in Malaysia, where illegal
poaching is strictly controlled, but all existing populations are at extreme risk from
habitat fragmentation and
inbreeding. In Vietnam, almost three-quarters of the tigers killed provide stock for Chinese pharmacies. Also, the tigers are seen by poor natives as a resource through which they can ease
poverty. Indochinese tigers are smaller and darker than Bengal tigers. Males weigh from 150–190 kg (330–420 lb) on average while females are smaller at 110–140 kg (242–308 lb).
★ The '
Malayan tiger' (''Panthera tigris jacksoni''), exclusively found in the southern (
Malaysian) part of the
Malay Peninsula, was not considered a subspecies in its own right until 2004. The new classification came about after a study by Luo et al. from the
Laboratory of Genomic Diversity Study,
[25] part of the
National Cancer Institute of the United States. Recent counts showed there are 600–800 tigers in the wild, making it the third largest tiger population behind the Bengal tiger and the Indochinese tiger. The Malayan tiger is a national icon in Malaysia, appearing on its
coat of arms and in logos of Malaysian institutions, such as
Maybank.
Sumatran tiger
★ The '
Sumatran tiger' (''Panthera tigris sumatrae'') is found only on the Indonesian island of
Sumatra. The wild population is estimated at between 400 and 500, seen chiefly in the island's
national parks. Recent genetic testing has revealed the presence of unique genetic markers, indicating that it may develop into a separate species, if it is not made extinct.
[26] This has led to suggestions that Sumatran tigers should have greater priority for conservation than any other subspecies.
Habitat destruction is the main threat to the existing tiger population (logging continues even in the supposedly protected national parks), but 66 tigers were recorded as being shot and killed between 1998 and 2000, or nearly 20% of the total population. The Sumatran tiger is the smallest of all living tiger subspecies. Adult males weigh between 100–130 kg (220–286 lb), females 70–90 kg (154–198 lb). Their small size is an adaptation to the thick, dense forests of the Sumatra island where they reside, as well as the smaller-sized prey. On
February 3 2007 a pregnant Sumatran Tiger was caught by people from Rokan Hilir village at Riau province. Indonesian fauna conservation officials are planning to transfer her to the
Bogor Safari Park in
Java.
Amur tiger
★ The '
Amur tiger' (''Panthera tigris altaica''), also known as the ''Siberian'', ''Manchurian'' or ''North China'' tiger, is confined completely to the
Amur region in far eastern
Siberia, where it is now protected. The last two censuses (1996 and 2005) found 450–500 Amur tigers within their single and more or less continuous range making it one of the largest undivided tiger populations in the world. Considered the largest subspecies, with an average weight of around 227 kg (500 lb). for males
[23] The Amur tiger is also noted for its thick coat, distinguished by a paler golden hue and a smaller number of stripes. The Amur tiger is the largest and heaviest of all naturally-occurring felines. A six-month old Amur tiger can be as big as a fully grown
leopard.
South China tiger
★ The '
South China tiger' (''Panthera tigris amoyensis''), also known as the ''Amoy'' or ''Xiamen'' tiger, is the most critically endangered subspecies of tiger and will almost certainly become extinct. It is one of the smaller tiger subspecies. The length of the South China tiger ranges from 2.2–2.6 m (87–104 in) for both males and females. Males weigh between 127 and 177 kg (280–390 lb) while females weigh between 100 and 118 kg (220–260 lb). It seems likely that the last known wild South China tiger was shot and killed in
1994, and no live tigers have been seen in their natural habitat for the last 20 years. In 1977, the Chinese government passed a law banning the killing of wild tigers, but this appears to have been too late to save the subspecies. There are currently 59 known captive South China tigers, all within China, but these are known to be descended from only six animals. Thus, the
genetic diversity required to maintain the subspecies may no longer exist, making extinction a possibility. Currently, there are breeding efforts to reintroduce these tigers to the wild by 2008.
Extinct tiger subspecies
A hunted down Balinese Tiger.
★ The '
Balinese tiger' (''Panthera tigris balica'') has always been limited to the island of
Bali. These tigers were hunted to extinction – the last Balinese tiger is thought to have been killed at Sumbar Kima, West Bali on
27 September 1937; this was an adult female. No Balinese tiger was ever held in captivity. The tiger still plays an important role in Balinese
Hindu religion.
★ The '
Javan tiger' (''Panthera tigris sondaica'') was limited to the Indonesian island of
Java. It now seems likely that this subspecies was made extinct in the
1980s, as a result of hunting and habitat destruction, but the extinction of this subspecies was extremely probable from the
1950s onwards (when it is thought that fewer than 25 tigers remained in the wild). The last specimen was sighted in
1979.
★ The '
Caspian tiger' or 'Persian Tiger' (''Panthera tigris virgata'') appears to have become extinct in the late
1960s, with the last reliable sighting in
1968, though it is thought that such a tiger was last shot dead in the south-eastern-most part of Turkey in 1970. Historically it ranged through
Afghanistan,
Iran,
Iraq,
Pakistan, the former
Soviet Union and
Turkey. The Caspian tiger was a large subspecies and reached nearly the dimensions of the Bengal Tiger. The heaviest confirmed weight of a male was 240 kg. The ground colour was comparable to that of the Indian subspecies, but differed especially in the tight, narrow striping pattern. The stripes were rather dark grey or brown than black. Especially during the winter was the fur relatively long. The Caspian tiger was one of two subspecies of tiger (along with the Bengal) that was used by the Romans to battle
gladiators and other animals, including the
Barbary Lion.
Evolution
The Tiger is uncommon in the fossil record, which is why its evolution remains partly unclear. The oldest remains of a tiger like cat, called ''
Panthera palaeosinensis'' have been found in China and Java. This species occurred about 2 million years ago at the beginning of the
pleistocene and was smaller than a tiger. Early true tiger fossils stem from Java and are between 1.6 and 1.8 million years old. Distinct fossils from the early and middle pleistocene were discovered in deposits from China, Sumatra and Java. A subspecies called '
Trinil tiger' (''Panthera tigris trinilensis'') for example occurred about 1.2 million years ago and was found at the locality of
Trinil,
Java,
Indonesia.
[28]
In India, and northern Asia the tiger appears for the first time in the late pleistocene. Fossil tigers were also found in eastern
Beringia (but not on the American Continent) and
Sachalin island. Tiger fossils of the late pleistocene have also turned up in
Japan. These fossils indicate that the Japanese tiger was not bigger than the island subspecies of tigers of recent ages. This may be due to the phenomenon in which body size is related to environmental space (see
island dwarfism), or in the case of a large predator like a tiger, availability of prey. Until the Holocene tigers occurred also in Borneo, where it is not present today.
Traditional Asian medicine
Skeleton
Tiger parts are used in traditional Chinese medicines. Many people in China believed that tiger parts have medicinal properties. There is no scientific corroboration to these beliefs
Although all trade in tiger parts is illegal under
CITES and a domestic trade ban has been in place in China since 1993 there is still a number of
tiger farms in the country specializing in breeding the cats for profit from meat and other tiger products. It is estimated that between 4000 and 5000 captive-bred, semi-tame animals live in these farms today.
[29]
[30]
Tigers in literature and popular culture
''Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright''
''In the forests of the night,''
''What immortal hand or eye''
''Could frame thy fearful symmetry?...''
William Blake, "The Tyger", ''Songs of Experience''. The most anthologized poem in the English language.
The word "tiger" is borrowed from the Greek word "''tigris''", which itself is derived "possibly from an Iranian source."
[31] In American English, "Tigress" was first recorded in 1611. "
Tiger's-eye" is a name for a golden-brown striped,
chatoyant, fibrous variety of
quartz used as a semi-precious gemstone.
The tiger has long been a subject of imaginative literature. Both
Rudyard Kipling in ''
The Jungle Book'' and
William Blake in ''
Songs of Experience'' depict the tiger as a menacing and fearful animal. In ''The Jungle Book'', the tiger,
Shere Khan, is the wicked mortal enemy of the protagonist,
Mowgli. However, other depictions are more benign:
Tigger, the tiger from
A. A. Milne's
Winnie the Pooh stories, is cuddly and likable. In the
Man Booker Prize winning
novel "
Life of Pi," the protagonist, Pi Patel, sole human survivor of a ship wreck in the
Atlantic Ocean, befriends another survivor: a large
Bengal Tiger. The famous comic strip ''
Calvin and Hobbes'' features Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes. A tiger is also featured on the cover of the popular cereal "Frosted Flakes" (also marketed as "Frosties") bearing the name "Tony the Tiger".
The tiger is one of the most popular sports teams nicknames/mascots. Some examples are the
Australian Football League team
Richmond Tigers, the American
Major League Baseball team
Detroit Tigers, the
NFL's
Cincinnati Bengals(a reference to the
bengal tiger), the Australian
NRL team Wests Tigers, the English
rugby union club
Leicester Tigers, the English
football (soccer) club
Hull City and the
NCAA Division I sports teams
LSU Tigers,
Auburn Tigers,
Princeton Tigers, and
Clemson Tigers.
During
Bleeding Kansas in 1850s, pro-slavery militiamen operating out of
Missouri who raided anti-slavery settlements in
Kansas styled themselves the "Tigers." This tradition survives in University of Missouri mascot "Tigers."
Humble Oil, a division of
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, USA, (Jersey Standard), used a caricatured tiger and the slogan "Put a Tiger in your Tank" to promote their gasoline/petrol products. Jersey Standard used a real tiger in its advertising when it took the Exxon name company-wide in 1972 and when advertising abroad as
Esso. The brand kept the tiger mascot as a part of ExxonMobil when they merged in 1999.
The tiger is one of the 12
Chinese zodiac animals. Also in various
Chinese art and martial art, the tiger is depicted as an equal rival towards the
Chinese dragon. In
Imperial China, a tiger often represented the highest army
general (or present day
defense secretary), while the emperor and empress were represented by a
dragon and
phoenix, respectively.
The tiger is regarded as the king of the jungle in most parts of
Asia, because its forehead has a marking which resembles the Chinese character 王, which means "king". Consequently, many cartoon depictions of tigers in China are drawn with 王 on their forehead.
In a poll organised by
Animal Planet in 2004, More than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries voted to decide their favourite animal. The tiger received 10,904 votes winning the title of the World's Favourite Animal, beating man's best friend,
dog, by 17 votes. Third most popular was the
dolphin, followed by the
horse and the
lion.
[32]
A stylized tiger cub, "
Hodori", was a mascot of the
1988 Summer Olympic Games of
Seoul.
The image and name of the tiger are used on tins of
Tiger Balm, an ointment for strained or sore muscles.
In
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, a British officer in the
Zulu War is diagnossed to have lost a leg to a tiger. In this movie, they list the scientific name of the tiger as ''Felis horriblis'', whereas in actuality the scientific name is ''Panthera tigris''.
The tiger as a national animal
The Tiger is the national animal of:
★
Bangladesh (Royal Bengal Tiger)
★
India (Royal Bengal Tiger)
★
Malaysia
★
Nepal (Royal Bengal Tiger)
★
North Korea (Siberian Tiger)
★
South Korea (Siberian Tiger)
★ Former
Nazi Germany along with the black eagle (currently it is the
black eagle (
Bundesadler) (official) and
leopard (unofficial)
★ Former
USSR (Siberian Tiger) (currently it is the
Bear and golden
bicephalic eagle)
Pet tigers
The
American Zoo and Aquarium Association estimates that up to 12,000 tigers are being kept as private pets in the USA, which is significantly more than the world's entire wild population.
[33] 4000 are believed to be in captivity in Texas alone.
Part of the reason for America's enormous tiger population relates to legislation. Only nineteen states have banned private ownership of tigers, fifteen require only a licence, and sixteen states have no regulations at all.
The success of breeding programmes at American zoos and circuses led to an overabundance of cubs in the 1980s and 90s, which drove down prices for the animals.
The
SPCA estimate there are now 500 lions, tigers and other big cats in private ownership just in the Houston area.
Media
Video of the ''Panthera tigris'' at Disney's Animal Kingdom
See also
★
White tiger
★
Black tiger (animal)
★
Smilodon (popularly known as the ''Sabertooth tiger'', but not actually closely related to tigers). For other prehistoric mammals given this popular name, see
saber-toothed tiger.
★
Tigon, a hybrid of a male tiger and female
lion
★
Liger, a hybrid of a male lion and female tiger
★
Tiger Temple, a Buddhist temple in Thailand famous for its tame tigers
★
Siegfried & Roy, two famous tamers of tigers
★
Project Tiger
★
Maltese Tiger
★
Toyger, a cat breed that looks like a mini-tiger.
References
1. Crossbreed ligers can grow larger than Tigers, but they are not a species with its own breeding population.
2. BBC Wildfacts – Tiger
3. Vital Statistics: Tigers
4. WWF – Tigers – Ecology
5. Vratislav Mazak: ''Der Tiger''. Nachdruck der 3. Auflage von 1983. Westarp Wissenschaften Hohenwarsleben, 2004 ISBN 3 894327596
6. Sunquist, Mel and Fiona Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago.
7. Graham Batemann: ''Die Tiere unserer Welt Raubtiere'', Deutsche Ausgabe: Bertelsmann Verlag, 1986.
8. Tigers: Senses
9. Tiger – BangaliNET.com
10. Tiger – Oakland Zoo
11. Sunquist, Fiona & Mel Sunquist. 1988. Tiger Moon. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
12. Vratislav Mazak: ''Der Tiger''. Nachdruck der 3. Auflage von 1983. Westarp Wissenschaften Hohenwarsleben, 2004 ISBN 3 894327596
13. Vratislav Mazak: ''Der Tiger''. Nachdruck der 3. Auflage von 1983. Westarp Wissenschaften Hohenwarsleben, 2004 ISBN 3 894327596
14. Sympatric Tiger and Leopard: How two big cats coexist in the same area. Ecology.info
15. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070512.BCTIGER12/TPStory/National
16. Dalai Lama offers Indian tigers a lifeline Simon Denyer
17. Fur flies over tiger plight Justin Huggler
18. Dalai Lama campaigns for wildlife
19. Big Cat Recuse - Tiger
20. ''Medicare program; endangered tigers; foster children''. 2007. '60 Minutes' (CBS).
21. Task force says tigers under siege
22. No tigers found in Sariska: CBI (Archive).
23. Sunquist, Mel and Fiona Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago
24. Sunquist, Mel and Fiona Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago
25. Laboratory of Genomic Diversity LGD
26. Cracraft J., Felsenstein J., Vaughn J., Helm-Bychowski K. (1998) Sorting out tigers (Panthera tigris) Mitochondrial sequences, nuclear inserts, systematics, and conservation genetics. Animal Conservation 1: 139–150.
27. Sunquist, Mel and Fiona Sunquist. 2002. Wild Cats of the World. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago
28. Van den Hoek Ostende. 1999. Javan Tiger - Ruthlessly hunted down. 300 Pearls - Museum highlights of natural diversity. Downloaded on 11 August 2006.
29. WWF: Chinese tiger farms must be investigated
30. WWF: Breeding tigers for trade soundly rejected at CITES
31. ''Tiger'' at the Online Etymology Dictionary
32.
33. Lloyd, J & Mitchinson, J: "The Book of General Ignorance". Faber & Faber, 2006.
;General references
★ Mazák, V. 1981.
Panthera tigris. (PDF). Mammalian Species, 152: 1-8. American Society of Mammalogists.
★ Ronald M. Nowak: ''Walker's Mammals of the World''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999 ISBN 0-8018-5789-9
★ Tom Brakefield. 1993.
Big cats kingdom of might, Voyageur press.
★ John Seidensticker: ''Riding the Tiger. Tiger Conservation in Human-dominated Landscapes '' Cambridge University Press, 1999 ISBN 0521648351
External links
★
Save The Tiger Fund
★
Sundarbans Tiger Project Research and Conservation of tigers in the largest remaining mangrove forest in the world.
★
Tiger Conservation Securing a future for Tigers in the wild
★
Tigers in Crisis Information about the Earth's vanishing Tigers.
★
BBC Wildfacts: Tiger
★
Can India's tigers survive extinction? Author Valmik Thapar on the tiger crisis
★
Why India's tigers may yet survive Scientist Ullas Karanth on the road ahead
★
Tiger Haven Sanctuary
★
Kanha National Park
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