Siberian Tiger

1、Siberian TigerThe Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), also known as the Amur, Manchurian, Altaic, Korean, North China or, Ussuri tiger, and formerly known as the Caspian, Persian or Turanian tiger is a rare subspecies of tiger (P. tigris). Though it once ranged throughout Iran, Iraq, Afghanist

2、an, Turkey, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Caucasus, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, it is now completely confined to the Amur-Ussuri region of Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai in far eastern Siberia, where it is now protected. It is considered to be the biggest of the nine recent tiger subspecie

3、s and the largest member of the family Felidae. Genetic research in 2009 revealed that the Siberian tiger is almost identical to the Caspian tiger, once thought to have been a distinct subspecies.Physical characteristicsPelageThe pelage of the Siberian tiger is moderately thick, coarse and sparse co

4、mpared to that of other felids living in the former Soviet Union. Compared to now extinct westernmost populations, the still living Far Eastern Siberian tigers summer and winter coats contrasts sharply compared to other subspecies. Generally, the coat of now extinct western populations was brighter

5、and more uniform than that of Far Eastern populations. The summer coat is coarse, while the winter coat is denser, longer, softer and silkier. The winter fur often appears quite shaggy on the trunk, and is markedly longer on the head, almost covering the ears. The whiskers and hair on the occiput an

6、d the top of the neck is also greatly elongated. The background colour of the winter coat os less bright and rusty compared to that of the summer coat, and tends to be more ocherous. Due to the winter furs greater length, the stripes appear broader with less defined outlines. The summer hair on the

7、back is 15-17 mm long, 30-50 mm along the top of the neck, 25-35 mm on the abdomen, and 14-16 mm on the tail. The winter fur on the back is 40-50 mm, 70-110 mm on the top of the neck, 70-95 mm on the throat, 60-100 mm on the chest and 65-105 on the abdomen. The whiskers are 90-115 mm. Size and weigh

8、tThe Siberian tiger is typically 2-4inches taller at the shoulders than the Bengal tiger, which is about 107-110cm (42-43in) tall. Mature males reach an average head and body length of 190-230centimetres (75-90in). The largest male with largely assured references was 350cm (138in) over curves (3,30m

9、/130 in. between pegs) in total length. Females are normally smaller than males and weigh 100-167kg (220-368lb), probably up to 180kg (400lb). The bodies of now extinct western populations were generally less massive than that of their Far Eastern cousins, and their average size was slightly less. I

10、n Turkestan, male tigers exceeded 200 cm in length, though an estimated body length of 270 cm was recorded. Females were smaller in size, normally ranging between 160-180 cm. The maximum known weight was 240 kg. Although tigers from Turkestan never reached the size of Far Eastern tigers, there are r

11、ecords of very large individuals of the former population. The tail length in fully grown males is about 1 m (39 in). Weights of up to 318kg (700lb) have been recorded and exceptionally large males weighing up to 384kg (847lb) are mentioned in the literature but, according to Mazak, none of these ca

12、ses can be confirmed via reliable sources. A further unconfirmed report tells of a male tiger shot in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in 1950 weighing 384.8kg (846.6lb) and measuring 3.48m (11.5ft). The Siberian Tiger Project, which has operated from Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik since 1992, found that 215kg (

13、474lb) seemed to be the largest that they were able to verify, albeit from a limited number of specimens. According to modern research of wild Siberian tigers in Sikhote-Alin, an average adult male tiger (35 months) weighs 167.3 - 185.7kg (the average asymptotic limit, computed by use of the Michael

14、is-Menten formula, gives 222.3kg for male tigers) and an adult tigress 117.9122.6kg, respectively. The mean weight of historical Siberian tigers is supposed to be higher： 215.3-260kg for male tigers. At least one authority suspects that this is the difference between real weights and hunters estimat

15、es. Dale Miquelle, program director of the Siberian Tiger Project, writes that, despite repeated claims in the popular literature that the Siberian is the largest of all tigers, their measurements on more than fifty captured individuals suggest that body size is, in fact, similar to that of Bengal t

16、igers. The skull of the Siberian tiger is distinguished by its larger overall size, as well as the great development of its sagittal crest, whose height and strength exceeds that of other tigers and the lion. Maximum skull length in males from Turkestan was 297.0-365.8 mm, while that of females was

17、195.7-255.5 mm. On January 10, 1954, a tiger killed on the Sumbar in Kopet-Dag had a skull length of 385 mm, which is considerably more than the known maximum for this population and slightly exceeds that of most Far Eastern tigers. Based on skull measurements, it appears that the biggest Siberian t

18、igers came from Manchuria, where today the cats are reduced to a handful of individuals. The largest Manchurian skull on record measures 406mm in length, which is about 20-30mm more than the maximum skull lengths achieved by tigers from the Amur region and northern India. ReproductionSiberian tigers

19、 reach sexual maturity at 4 years of age. They mate at any time of the year. A female signals her receptiveness by leaving urine deposits and scratch marks on trees. She will spend a week with the male, during which she is receptive for three days. Gestation lasts 33 months. Litter size is normally

20、3 or 4 cubs but there can be as many as 6. The cubs are born blind in a sheltered den and are left alone when the female leaves to hunt for food. Cubs are divided equally between genders at birth. However, by adulthood there are usually 2 to 4 females for every male. The female cubs remain with thei

21、r mothers longer, and later they establish territories close to their original ranges. Males, on the other hand, travel unaccompanied and range farther earlier in their lives, thus making them more vulnerable to poachers and other tigers. GeneticsSeveral reports have been published since the 1990s o

22、n the genetic makeup of the Siberian tiger and its relationship to other subspecies. One of the most important outcomes has been the discovery of low genetic variability in the wild Far Eastern population, especially when it comes to maternal or mitochondrial (mtDNA) lineages. It seems that a single

23、 mtDNA haplotype almost completely dominates the maternal lineages of wild Siberian tigers. On the other hand, captive cats appear to show higher mtDNA diversity. This may suggest that the subspecies has experienced a very recent genetic bottleneck caused by human pressure, with the founders of the

24、captive population being captured when genetic variability was higher in the wild. However, it may well be that the Siberian tiger population has always shown relatively low genetic diversity, due to a small number of founders colonising the Far East. Work with the preserved remains of the now extin

25、ct Caspian Tiger (P.t. virgata) has shown that the two subspecies share a comparatively recent common history, at least when it comes to mtDNA lineages. It appears that tigers colonised central Asia at most 10,000 years ago, and the modern Siberian stock may be the result of a few Caspian tigers sub

26、sequently wandering east via northern Asia. New genetic analysis revealed that the extinct Caspian tiger lives on in the Siberian Tiger. Researchers from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom collected tissue samples from 20 Caspian tiger specimens kept in museums across Eurasia. Afterwards

27、, researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) Laboratory of Genomic Diversity in Frederick, Maryland, sequenced parts of five mitochondrial genes. The Caspian Tigers mitochondrial DNA is only one letter of genetic code separated from Siberian Tiger DNA, while it is readily distinguisha

28、ble from of DNA other tiger subspecies. This indicates that the Caspian and the Siberian subspecies are really one. The scientists have concluded that the two are so similar because both were descended from the same migrating ancestor. The ancestor colonized Central Asia via the narrow Gansu Corrido

29、r (Silk Road) from eastern China. The researchers suggest that through the early 1900s, Caspian and Siberian tiger populations intermingled, but hunters subsequently isolated the two groups. This resulted in the Siberian population splitting off from the Caspian population only in the past century.

30、Behaviour Dietary habitsIn the southeast Trans-Caucasus, the Siberian tigers main prey was wild boar, though it occasionally fed on roe deer, red deer and domestic animals such as dogs and cattle in winter. Tigers in Iran ate the same species with the addition of gazelle. The Siberian tigers prey in

31、 Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was primarily boar, as well as Bactrian deer. In the lower Amu-Darya River, tigers sometimes preyed on jackals, jungle cats and locusts. On the Zhana-Darya and around the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, as well as boar, the tiger fed on saiga, goitered gazelle, wild hor

32、ses, Mongolian Wild Ass and mountain sheep. In Tadzhikistan and other regions of central Asia, as well as Kazakhstan, tigers frequently attacked dogs, horses and rarely camels. In Baikal, the Siberian tiger fed on wild boar, roe deer, Manchurian wapiti, moose and livestock.3In the Amur region, the t

33、iger preys primarily on red deer and wild boar, which make up 65-90% of its diet in the Russian Far East. Other important prey species are Manchurian wapiti, moose, siberian roe deer, sika deer, musk deer and goral. It will also take smaller prey like lagomorphs (hares, rabbits, and pikas) and fish,

34、 including salmon. Tigers may prey on both brown and black bears when ungulate populations decrease. Interspecific predatory relationshipsBears are among the prey species of the Siberian tiger. Asiatic black bears and brown bears constitute 5-8% of the Siberian tigers diet. In particular, the brown

35、bears input is estimated to be 1-1.5%. Certain tigers have been reported to imitate the calls of Asiatic black bears to attract them. Brown bears are typically attacked by tigers more often than black bears, due to their habit of living in more open areas and inability to climb trees. Tiger attacks

36、on bears tend to occur when ungulate populations decrease. However, there are also records of bears killing tigeresses and subadult tigers, either in self defense or in disputes over kills. In areas where wolves and tigers share ranges, the two species typically display a great deal of dietary overl

37、ap, resulting in intense competition. Wolf and tiger interactions are well documented in Sikhote-Alin, which until the beginning of the 20th century, held very few wolves. It is thought by certain experts that wolf numbers increased in the region after tigers were largely eliminated during the Russi

38、an colonization in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This is corroborated by native inhabitants of the region claiming that they had no memory of wolves inhabiting Sikhote-Alin until the 1930s, when tiger numbers decreased. Tigers depress wolf numbers, either to the point of localized extinction or to

39、 such low numbers as to make them a functionally insignificant component of the ecosystem. Wolves appear capable of escaping competitive exclusion from tigers only when human pressure decreases tiger numbers. Today wolves are considered scarce in tiger inhabited areas, being found in scattered pocke

40、ts, and usually seen travelling as loners or in small groups. First hand accounts on interactions between the two species indicate that tigers occasionally chase wolves from their kills, while wolves will scavenge from tiger kills. Tigers are not known to prey on wolves, though there are four record

41、s of tigers killing wolves without consuming them. This competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters in the Far East to tolerate the big cats, as they limit ungulate populations less than wolves, and are effective in controlling wolf numbers

42、. HabitatIn the southeast Trans-Caucasus, the Siberian tiger was mostly confined to the forests of the Talysh lowlands in areas where streams and reed thickets along marine lagoons were adjacent. In Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan, the tiger favoured river and lake basins, densely grown reeds

43、, plume grass or tugai forests consisting of poplar, oleaster and willow. The Siberian tiger was sometimes encountered in montane belts, in summer ascending up to the permanent snowling in Kazakhstan and Kirgizia. Tigers were captured in fir and juniper groves at heights of 2,500-3,000 meters above

44、sea level in Kirgiz, Trans-Ili and Dzhunarsk Alatau. Generally, the western Siberian tiger populations thrived in areas with an abundance of wild boar and Bactrian deer, large water supplies, dense thickets and low snow cover. The Siberian tiger in the Far East is mostly confined to low mountains, h

45、aving been displaced by humans from lower areas. Its most common habitats are mountain river valleys and pads overgrown with pine and oak, as well as among mountains teaming with deciduous shrubs or in oak or nut-tree groves. It travels only through dense spruce forests, and is attracted to rocky ar

46、eas and forests abundant with wild boar, wapiti and moose. In times of food scarcity, it can travel through village outskirts and hay fields. In areas of heavy snowfall such as the Primore region, the tiger avoids areas of deep snow due to the scarcity of game in such areas, as well as the frost cau

47、sing the tigers presence to be more conspicuous. HistoryThe Tungusic people considered the Siberian tiger a near-deity and often referred to it as Grandfather or Old man. The Udege and Nanai called it Amba. The Manchu considered the Siberian tiger as Hu Lin, the king. The most elite unit of the Chin

48、ese Imperial Army in Manchu Qing Dynasty is called Hu Shen Yin, literally The Tiger God Army.In the early years of the Russian Civil War, both Red and White armies based in Vladivostok nearly wiped out the local Siberian tigers. In 1935, when the Manchurian Chinese were driven back across the Amur a

49、nd the Ussuri, the tigers had already withdrawn from their northern and western range. The few that remained in the East Manchurian mountains were cut off from the main population by the building of railroads. Within a few years, the last viable Siberian tiger population was confined to Ussuriland.

50、Legal tiger hunting within the Soviet Union would continue until 1947 when it was officially prohibited. In 1962, the last tiger in Heilongjiang received protection. In the mid 1980s, it was estimated that the Siberian tiger population consisted of approximately 250 animals. In 1987, law and order a

51、lmost entirely broke down due to impending collapse of the Soviet Union. Subsequent illegal deforestation and bribery of park rangers made the poaching of Siberian tigers easier, once again putting the subspecies at risk from extinction. However due to the work of The Siberian Tiger Project, founded

52、 in 1992, the Siberian tiger has seen a steady recovery and stabilization after the disastrous post-Soviet years that saw its numbers decline sharply. The basis of the success has largely been on the meticulous research carried out on these tigers which led to the longest ongoing study of a single t

53、iger, Olga Project Tiger #1. Through this the project was able to focus their conservation efforts to decrease tiger mortality and to improve the quality of their habitat as well. The project included anti-poaching patrols, consultation with local governments regarding human-tiger conflicts, reducin

54、g the occurrences of clearcut logging, and other habitat depletion activities. Extinction of western populationsUntil the 19th century, Siberian tigers (formerly known in their western range as Caspian tigers) still inhabited wide spaces of Western and Central Asia. In the mid-1800s, Caspian tigers

55、were killed 180 km northeast of Atbasar, Kazakhstan and near Barnaul, Russia (Ognev 1935, Mazk 1981). The only reported Caspian tiger from Iraq was killed near Mosul in 1887 (Kock 1990). In 1899, the last Caspian tiger near the Lop Nur basin in Xinjiang, China, was killed (Ognev 1935). Caspian tiger

56、s disappeared from the Tarim River basin in Xinjiang, China, by the 1920s. (Nowell & Jackson 1996) In 1922, the last known tiger in the Caucasus region was killed near Tbilisi, Georgia, after killing domestic livestock (Ognev 1935). The last record of the Caspian tiger on the Ili River, their last s

57、tronghold in the region of Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan, dates to 1948. (Nowell & Jackson 1996)The Russian government had worked heavily to eradicate the Caspian tiger during planning a huge land reclamation program in the beginning of the 20th century. They considered there was no room for the tiger i

58、n their plans and so instructed the Russian army to exterminate all tigers found around the area of the Caspian Sea, a project that was carried out very efficiently. Once the extermination of the Caspian tiger was almost complete, the farmers cleared forests and planted crops like rice and cotton. D

59、ue to intensive hunting and deforestation, the Caspian tiger retreated first from the lush lowlands to the forested ranges, then to the marshes around some of the larger rivers, and finally, deeper into the mountains, until it almost certainly became extinct. In 1938, national park Tigrovaya Balka was opened in Tajik SSR to save Riparian forests and rare animals, including Caspian Tiger, but it didnt help population of tigers. It was the last stronghold of the Caspian ti