22 facts about Amur leopard
Amur leopards are the world’s rarest wild cats. One of eight leopard subspecies, the Amur leopard is easily distinguished from its cousins. Despite be ...
This one of the largest terrestrial predators is a cunning, lone hunter, with perfect climbing and swimming skills. Equally fascinating and horrifying, it has become a symbol in the Far East's culture and mythology. Typically, it is associated with wariness, bravery, beauty, and immortality, but also with bloodlust, greed, and anger.
A common division distinguishes the subspecies:
The research of 2018 discovered that their last common ancestry lived approximately 110 thousand years ago.
Small populations of these cats inhabit China, eastern Russia, and inland between India and Vietnam. At present, their overall population is estimated at between 4,7 and 5,1 thousand individuals, with most (approximately 3000) inhabiting India, over 400 in Russia, around 370 in Indonesia, and between 300 and 500 in Bangladesh.
As recently as the 19th century, tigers were spread from eastern Turkey through the South Caucasus to the coasts of the Sea of Japan. Out of the populations present outside Sumatra, tigers were common also in Java and Bali.
They make auxiliary use of Jacobson’s organ for odor recognition.
They pick up sounds with frequencies from 200 Hz to 100 kHz (five times higher than those heard by humans).
Truth be told, the range of the roar is much greater because tigers can make infrasound at an even lower frequency than that heard by humans.
They can jump up to five meters high, and cover eight to nine meters in distance.
They can, and will, attack humans, but such attacks are unintentional. They will not hesitate to defend their territory, and will likely attack when hurt or weakened.
Tigers are lone hunters and prefer easy prey. It might happen that the tiger will consider human meat a “delicacy.” One of the best-known examples is the tigress from Champawat, India, that killed over 400 people.
The retina of the tiger’s eye has six times the number of rods responsible for night vision than in the human eye. Rods perceive information about the brightness of an object rather than its color. The increased number of rods allows them to see the movements of objects and animals in almost total darkness. This gives them a huge advantage in the dark and is why they hunt at night.
It ranges from yellow to red-orange with distinct black stripes. Their bellies and head sides are white.
The whiskers are spread across the skin and vibrissae are found on the eyebrow, cheeks, upper lip, and both sides of the muzzle.
There are no two identically colored tigers. The brightest strips are typical for Siberian tigers. Strips are also present on their skin.
The blue tiger is called the Maltese tiger and is probably a variety of the Bengal tiger. All white tigers housed in zoos are descended from a single father named Mohman. These tigers have more health problems like cleft lip and palate, scoliosis, and strabismus. This is a result of inbreeding, which provides zoos with white cats.
They rest in the shade under trees, and on the Siberian steppes in rock clefts.
The only animals capable of withstanding their voraciousness are adult, healthy rhinos and elephants. In the clash between a tiger and a brown bear, the tiger usually wins.
When famished, an individual can devour up to 50 kilograms per meal. Some of the leftovers can be stored for the next meal.
They mark their territories with urine, excrement, and scent glands.
For females, it’s a mother with a daughter.
A female gives birth to three to four cubs after an average of 104-106 days of gestation.
A hundred years ago there were more than 100.000 of them, now there are about 4000.
The offspring of a male lion and tigress is called liger, and of a male tiger and lioness is called tigon.
Some parts of tigers’ body are used as aphrodisiacs.
The most revered are white tigers, considered kings of all animals in China. In Buddhism tigers are a symbol of piety and hospitality, and in Japan one of four good spirits.
