The tiger is a large, wild cat belonging to the Felidae family; the biggest of the 4 big cats in the group Panthera. The tiger is native to most of the eastern and southern Asian regions. The tiger is a predator at the top of the food chain in each of its locales and a carnivore. Reaching up to almost thirteen feet in length and weighing nearly 700 lbs, the largest tiger subspecies are similar in size to the biggest of the extinct, prehistoric feline predators. Apart from their great size and strength, their most distinguishing characteristic is the pattern of dark stripes atop almost white to red-orange fur, with a lighter underbelly. The largest member of the tiger family is the Siberian tiger.
     All tigers are very adaptable, ranging from the Siberian tundra, to wide open grassy areas, to tropical swampland. These animals are territorial and usually solitary, frequently requiring huge continuous regions of habitat which support their food requirements. This, combined with the fact that they're associated with some of the more largely populated areas on earth, has provoked serious conflicts with humans. Of the 9 different species of modern tiger, three have become extinct and the six remaining are tagged as endangered, some dangerously so. The foremost reasons for this are their habitat being destroyed and fragmented, and the hunting of people. Their traditional range, that once stretched from Mesopotamia through most of Southern and Eastern Asia, has been dramatically diminished.
     Nevertheless, tigers are one of the most recognizable and popular of the planet's magnetic mammals. They are depicted prominently in many culture's mythology and folklore, and still continue to be seen in modern books and movies. The tiger recurs on state flags, as the friendly mascot for varied sporting teams, and as the sacred animal of many Asian countries.
     There are nine modern subspecies of tiger and three of them are extinct. Of the surviving subspecies, the most populace is the Bengal tiger which is located in portions of India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, and Bhutan. It exists in wide-ranging habitats including tropical rain forests, mangroves, transient forests and swamp land. Wild males tend to weigh in at around 500 lbs. and the typical female will weigh 350 to 400 pounds. The Indian Bengal tigers are a little bulkier than those tigers found in the south, with the males tipping the scales at around 520 pounds. Wildlife experts had already thought their population to be under two thousand but a recent Tiger Conservation audit in India has found that the actual number may be as low as only 1,400 which would be a decrease of almost sixty percent in the last ten years alone. Since the early 1970s, there has been a wide-spread wildlife conservation plan, known as Project Tiger, to protect this creature. Despite the project's great efforts, one tiger reserve in Sariska claims to have lost its entire tiger population already from hunters and illegal poaching.
     The other existing species of tiger are the Indochinese tiger, Malayan tiger, Sumatran tiger, Siberian tiger and the South China tiger. The list that has become extinct already include the Balinese tiger, Javan tiger and the Caspian tiger. Hybrids and rare color variations exists which include the well known white tiger and the liger which is a cross between a male lion and a tigress. Ligers are much larger than either parent, representing the largest wildcat in the world, weighing in at nearly one thousand pounds.

Click Here To Return to the Main Tiger Page