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Bengal Tigers:
| Order: | Carnivora |
|---|---|
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus & Species: | Panthera Tigris Tigris |
| Range: | Southern Asia: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan |
Appearance
The Bengal Tiger is one of the largest cats in the world, second only to its cousin, the Siberian
tiger. The males may reach lengths of 10 feet from head to tail, and weigh around 500 pounds in the wild. The females are usually smaller, averaging around 8-9 feet long and weighing approximately 300 pounds.
The most distinctive characteristic of a tiger is certainly the orange and black stripes that appear on the tiger's pelt. These stripes are used to break up the coloration of the tiger when it is hunting. This makes seeing the tiger more difficult to the prey, thus allowing it to capture prey more easily.
Bengal tigers also appear in a mysterious white form. These animals are often mistaken for another species, however they are Bengal tigers. The white tigers are not albino, but they are lucistic. This mutation is similar to albinism because it prevents the production of melanin, the coloring pigment present in the skin and hair. However, lucistic tigers have blue eyes, unlike the pink eyes of an albino. These animals do occur in the wild, but their light coloration makes it difficult for them to survive to adult. They are easily seen by predators and make an easy meal. This keeps the tiger population orange due to Natural Selection. For more information on Evolution and the theory of Natural Selection, click here.
Tigers usually live around 23 years in captivity and around 18 years in the wild. They reach sexual maturity around the age of 5, and are able to breed with the local tigers during the mating season. Usually the only time to see tigers together is during the mating season, when a male will allow a female into his territory. During this season, which lasts from winter into spring, the males are wandering around in search of as many females as possible, while the female is trying to select the best male for her future offspring. These plans of each sex coincide with each other to lead to one thing: fighting. Since the female wants the most formidable male to father her cubs, and often more than one male is attempting to court her, the males participate in horrendous bouts that can last hours and span over days. Sometimes one male will succeed in killing the other, but most often the defeated male will retreat of the territory of the victor and on to find another female. The male mates with the female about 6 times, then is disappears to find a new female to mate with. The gestation period of tigers lasts around 120 days. After this time, as many as four cubs may be born; however 2 is the most common. They are about 18 inches long and weigh around 3.5 lbs. The male serves no purpose in raising the cubs, leaving it all to the females. Ironically, the males will even kill the male offspring to defeat competition for the females. A young male tiger will eventually grow into to an adult male tiger, so they try to eliminate the competition before any chance of a fight is possible. If the father will kill the cubs, certainly any other male tiger will. If a male is successful in destroying a female's cubs, if it is still mating season, she may mate with that very male who killed her cubs.
Tigers mainly hunt by stalking at night. They slowly approach their prey while hiding in the dense areas. The tiger's feet have specialized pads on the bottom that make stalking easier. The pads lower the sounds created from the underbrush that the tiger may step on. Deer, the usual prey for the tiger, immediately pause their eating and keenly listen to any sound created. If the tiger were to step on a twig and create a sound, it is likely that the prey would see the tiger and escape to safety. The pads prevent this scenario from occurring. The tiger will then pick a particular animal that it will try to catch. The tiger then sprints at the prey, hoping to catch it within a few strides.
Tigers mainly prey on large mammals of the area, including wild boar and deer. Since these animals are relatively strong, power is the specialization of the tiger. The tiger is powerful enough to wrestle the prey down and either bite the back of the neck, separating the spinal cord, or will bite the snout region to suffocate its prey. The latter is reserved for larger prey, which will have better protected spinal cords.
Tigers also eat food that we would not consider to be the food of a carnivore. Like house cats, tigers will eat a minute serving of grass. Although why they eat this is not known by scientists, it believe that grass keeps the tiger at its most healthy state. For most part, tigers will not eat fish, but in the Sundarbans, a dense, marshy forest, tigers have been seen feeding on fish.
Sadly, Bengal tigers are endangered in the wild. Before man began to intervene into the tigers' lives, their population was around 40,000 individuals. But eventually man began to hunt the tiger for sports, protection, and its false medicinal purposes. In 1965, one Maharaja reported that he had killed only 1,150 tigers [Wexo, Zoobooks 1996]. Because of horrid situations such as this, the tiger is dying off of the planet. Of the original 40,000 that existed before man's intervention, the population fell to 2,000 individuals in the 1940's. Today, with the addition of greater protection through parks and law enforcement, the Bengal tigers' population is now around 4,000 tigers. Surprisingly, there are actually more tigers in wildlife parks and zoos than there are in the wild. This only proves the great support that zoological parks provide for the endangered animals of the world.
Lifestyle
Tigers, like all cats excluding lions, tend to live solitarily. Each tiger controls its own territory around 5-30 square miles. In this territory, other tigers are usually not allowed. However, the territory of a male tends to overlap the territories of a few females. Tigers mark their territory through a number of ways. Tigers will often scratch their scent into trees. Another way for the to declare their territory is to urinate on the trees throughout the territory. The urine is combined with scent secretions from scent glands located in the posterior region of the tiger.
Food
Status in Wild