Nicole Richardson

Subspecies:

Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica)

Scientific Name : Panthera tigris Weight:

Males: 180 to 325 kg Females: 120 to 180 kg

South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis)

Length:
Males: 2.6 to 3.3 meters Females:

Life Span: 10 to 15 years (wild)

16 to 20 years (captivity)

Gestation: 103 days. Litter size: 3-4 cubs.

Other than the Siberian tiger, tigers in the wild live in a warm, tropical area. This is because they are sensitive to heat and need the shade that plants and trees provide. In the case of Siberians they have structural adaptations to cope with the cold.

Distribution of Tigers in the Wild

Tiger are territorial and solitary by nature and communicate by scent marks, vocalizations and visual signals. They usually interact briefly for mating purposes and occasionally to share a kill. There have been a few documented cases of tigers collaborating on a hunt, similar to a pride of lions.

It is considered by researchers that tigers are able to recognize each other. Tigers that are related to each other may be willing to share prey they have killed together and even those that have been in the area before and they recognize the scent of. This is not the norm though.
Also it is known for males to share their meals with females and cubs, allowing them to feed first or at the same time. This is unique for big cats; most species of cats, males will eat first until they get their fill then what is left will be shared by those remaining as they go down the social hierarchy. Aggression amongst adult male tigers is influenced by the density of tigers in an area and whether or not there is a social interference in which males are competing to take control of a territory. The bigger the territory the more females and resources, which means better survival changes and more chance of passing on their genes.

Unlike most other cats tigers love to swim. Tigers are quite happy to get into the water and cool off. They have even been known to hunt in the water. This love of water is a great benefit to tigers, they can quickly and easily cool down and get back to hunting. This behaviour also lets them hunt in another area. All animals need water and will usually drink from a water source at least once a day and tigers will happily hunt in water.

The size of tiger territories differs based on a couple of variables, the season, climate, gender and the amount of prey in an area. The availability of prey decrees the size of the territory, the more prey the smaller a tigers territory. For males in India, where the prey density is high, their territories range in size from 5 to 150 km2 and a male in Siberia the range is from 800 to 1200 km2. Males will have larger territories than females, which will overlap several females' territories. The bigger a males territory the more females' territories can be accommodated and the more females means more of that males cubs because he will the most likely to get to the female in heat. Tigers insure their territories by constantly patrolling them. In captivity a tiger can be seen to be constantly pacing around the edges of their enclosure, this is them checking the borders.

Tigers are essentially nocturnal, they active and moving primarily at night. They hunt, patrol, mark territories, court mates and tend to young mainly at night. The same activities may happen in daytime but are not often. If hunting is unsuccessful during the night a hungry tiger will go hunting in the day. Mother tigers will hunt during the day because nocturnal hunting will not provide enough food to feed her and her cubs. After sunrise activity gradually decreases until about midday and increase again around early evening. Between mid-morning and mid-afternoon tigers are least active, this time is the hottest part of the day and tigers keep cool by resting in dense vegetation, by streams and rivers or going for a swim. Being good swimmers tigers will often go into rivers and lakes. They can easily cross rivers 6 to 8 km wide, and have been known to swim distances of up to 29 km.

As solitary creatures tigers dont usually feed or hunt together. Mothers will hunt and feed their young and there has been document cases of cooperation in a hunt but other than this it is usually lone hunting. Though tigers usually eat medium sized animals, theyre opportunists and will hunt anything. Tigers will usually hunt at night and have superior vision for this. They ambush their prey overpowering them from any angle, using their body size and strength to knock large prey off balance and then bite the animals neck to kill it quickly. They preferred method to kill is by biting the throat and using their forelimbs to hold onto the prey, bringing it to the ground, remaining latched onto the throat until the prey dies of strangulation. With smaller prey the bite to the neck will often break the spinal cord, pierce the windpipe, or severe the jugular vein or common carotid artery.

Tigers are sometimes known as man eater and they have killed people but the tigers that attack are usually old and are missing teeth. They also attack livestock because both humans and livestock are easy prey and there are lots of them. Unlike some other man eating big cats tigers arent known to come in to human settlements to hunt, most of tigers happen when a person goes into the forest alone or in a small group.

Tigers are the largest of the big cats so they need a lot of food and as carnivores that food is meat. An adult tiger will eat large-bodied prey weighing about 20 kg or larger, such as moose, deer species, pigs, cows, horses, buffalos and goats. Occasionally they may consume tapirs, elephant and rhinoceros calves, bear species, leopards and Asiatic wild dogs. But mainly they are opportunist hunters, if it runs and they catch it, they will eat it.

Tigers orange with black stripes When alert to sounds, the tigers ears might look like it would be perk up and efficiently funnel sounds affective camouflage but in the to the inner ear. The ears can also light speckled floors of a forest it is rotate independently of each of, to the effective kind. figure out the exact location of the The tigers camouflage works sound. Both of these adaptations because their orange coats imitate allows tigers to communicate more light patterns on the ground and effectively. the black stripes look like grass. The pattern of the a tiger's stripes totally unique and identifies them to others, no unlike human fingerprints. The unique pattern is only on the coat either, if a tiger was shaved the same pattern would be preserved on the skin.

Males and females dont usually interact unless it is mating season. Mating season in tropic areas is around November to April; during the winter months in temperate regions. Gestation last for 103 days and 3-4 cubs will be in the litter. Cubs follow their mother out of the den at around 8 weeks and become independent at around 18 months of age. Mothers guard their young from wandering males that may kill the cubs to make the female receptive to mating.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tig

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 http://www.cukurcumatimes.co

m/2010/11/tiger-summit2010.html http://www.featurepics.com/onl ine/Tiger-Eating-Raw-Meat2072393.aspx

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