Tiger

Panthera tigris

Tiger (Panthera tigris) is a species in the genus Panthera, family Felidae, order Carnivora.

Scientific classification

Description

The tiger is the largest living cat. Males of the Amur (Siberian) population can exceed 300 kilograms; Sunda island tigers are much smaller. The striped coat is individually unique — no two tigers carry the same pattern — and the stripes are in the skin as well as the fur, so a shaved tiger is still striped.

Distribution and habitat

Tigers once ranged from eastern Turkey to the Russian Far East and south through the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They now occupy a small fraction of that range in scattered populations across South and Southeast Asia, plus the Russian Far East. Habitat spans tropical dry forest, mangrove, and boreal forest, unified less by vegetation than by dense cover, water, and large ungulate prey.

Behaviour

Unlike lions, tigers are solitary outside mating and cub-rearing. Territories are maintained by scent-marking and scrape marks; a male's range typically overlaps those of several females. Hunting is a stalk-and-ambush affair, usually ending within twenty or thirty metres, with a killing bite to the throat or nape. Most hunts fail.

Tigers swim readily and often, which distinguishes them from most cats, and in the Sundarbans they routinely cross tidal channels.

Conservation

Endangered. Three subspecies — Caspian, Javan and Bali — are extinct. The surviving populations are pressured by poaching for traditional medicine and skins, by prey depletion, and by the fragmentation of forest into blocks too small to hold a viable population. Tiger numbers in some range states have increased since the 2010 St Petersburg commitments, which is one of the more encouraging trends in large-carnivore conservation.

References

• Goodrich, J. et al. (2022). Panthera tigris. IUCN Red List assessment 15955.
• Sunquist, M. and Sunquist, F. (2002). Wild Cats of the World. University of Chicago Press.