Tiger

About the tiger

The tiger is a large cat in the genus Panthera, native to Asia, with a powerful, muscular body, a large head and paws, a long tail, and orange fur marked with black, mostly vertical stripes that fade to white on the underside and parts of the face. It was traditionally split into nine subspecies based on fur length, coloration, striping, and body size, though a 1999 and later 2015 analysis of morphological, ecological, and mitochondrial DNA traits argued for recognizing just two: P. t. tigris on the Asian mainland and the smaller P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands. The IUCN Cat Specialist Group adopted that two-subspecies view in 2017, though whole-genome studies since have found the six living putative subspecies to be genetically distinct, and the classification remains under review.

The tiger's head-body length runs 1.4 to 2.8 m (4 ft 7 in to 9 ft 2 in), with a tail of 0.6 to 1.1 m (2 ft to 3 ft 7 in), and it stands 0.8 to 1.1 m (2 ft 7 in to 3 ft 7 in) at the shoulder. The Siberian and Bengal tigers are the largest; male Bengal tigers weigh 200 to 260 kg (440 to 570 lb) and females 100 to 160 kg (220 to 350 lb), while island populations such as the Sumatran tiger run smaller, likely due to insular dwarfism, with males at 100 to 140 kg (220 to 310 lb). Its canine teeth, at 6.4 to 7.6 cm (2.5 to 3.0 in), are the longest in the cat family. The coat's orange background and black stripes, unique to each individual, help the tiger blend into vegetation with vertical patterns of light and shade, and its coloring may also help it go unnoticed by its color-blind prey.

The tiger shares its genus with the lion, leopard, jaguar, and snow leopard, and genetic analysis indicates the tiger and snow leopard are sister species whose lineages split apart between 2.70 and 3.70 million years ago. Studies of tiger phylogeography suggest all living tigers descend from a common ancestor that lived between 108,000 and 72,000 years ago, after the population contracted sharply during a glaciation event around 115,000 years ago; modern tiger populations then spread out from a refuge in Indochina after the Last Glacial Maximum.

Behavior and diet

The tiger is an apex predator that hunts mainly hooved mammals, ambushing them rather than chasing them over distance. It lives a largely solitary life, holding a home range that it defends from other tigers of the same sex. A male's range overlaps with those of several females, with whom he mates. After mating, females typically give birth to two or three cubs, which stay with their mother for about two years before becoming independent and leaving to establish home ranges of their own.

Tigers can interbreed with other big cats in captivity, producing hybrids such as the liger (from a female tiger and male lion) and the tigon (from a male tiger and female lion). Because these hybrids often develop life-threatening birth defects and can become obese, breeding them is considered unethical. Similarly, the white, golden, and snow-white color morphs of the Bengal tiger — the white and golden morphs from recessive genes, the snow-white morph from a combination of polygenes — are now virtually non-existent in the wild due to the reduction of wild tiger populations, but persist in captivity, where white tigers are overrepresented as a result of inbreeding; breeding white tigers is controversial, as it has no use for conservation, and continued breeding risks inbreeding depression in captive populations.

Range and habitat

Tigers historically ranged from eastern Turkey, northern Iran, and Afghanistan across Central Asia, and from northern Pakistan through the Indian subcontinent and Indochina to southeastern Siberia, Sumatra, Java, and Bali. Since the early 20th century, the species has lost at least 93% of that historic range and is now locally extinct across West and Central Asia, large areas of China, and the islands of Java and Bali. As of 2022, tigers occupy less than 7% of their historical distribution, in a scattered range across the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra, northeastern China, and the Russian Far East. India holds the largest extent of tiger habitat, followed by Russia.

The species is highly adaptable within forest habitats. It uses Tugay riverine forests and hilly and lowland forests in the Caucasus and Central Asia; Korean pine and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests in the Amur-Ussuri region of Russia and China, where riparian forests serve as dispersal corridors; and, on the Indian subcontinent, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, tropical dry forests, alluvial plains, and the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans. It has been recorded at elevations up to 4,200 m (13,800 ft) in Bhutan. In Sumatra, it inhabits lowland peat swamp forests and rugged montane forests.

Conservation status

The tiger is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with its range thought to have declined by 53% to 68% since the late 1990s. The major threats are habitat destruction and fragmentation from deforestation, poaching for fur, and illegal trade in body parts for medicinal purposes. Tigers are also drawn into conflict with people, attacking livestock in areas where natural prey has become scarce.

The species is legally protected in every country where it still occurs. Conservation measures include action plans, anti-poaching patrols, and schemes to monitor tiger populations, and several range countries have established wildlife corridors, with tiger reintroduction planned in some areas. Despite this range-wide decline, the tiger remains one of the world's most popular charismatic megafauna and has been kept in captivity since ancient times.