Vol. 20: #17 • Tigers • (4-21-2024) Tidbits of Coachella Valley

While we're on the subject of wild and exotic animals in this week's issue, we thought we'd spend a little time taking a look at that fabulous feline called the tiger. Sleek, beautiful and deadly, they're indeed a special breed unto themselves, and one that some determined souls actually harbor as pets!

• In the wild, you can find tigers in the dry forests, tropical forests, and flooded mangrove forests of Asia. However, the Siberian tiger likes the northern, colder areas of eastern Russia and northern China.

• Just as every human has different fingerprints, no two tigers are alike in the pattern of their stripes. The most familiar tiger, of course, is orange with black stripes, but others are black with tan stripes, or white with tan stripes. There are even all white albino tigers. The rare gene carried by white tigers is present in just one in every 10,000 tigers.

White or albino tigers are incredibly rare.

• The largest of the tiger species, the Siberian, reaches lengths of 10.75 feet (3.3 m) and weights of 660 lbs. (300 kg). The long tail can add up to 3.6 feet (1.1 m) to a tiger’s overall length. Even with their massive size, they can run up to 40 mph (65 km/hr) at full speed. And although it’s strange to think of a swimming cat, tigers actually like the water and are good swimmers.

Tigers enjoy the water, and are actually good swimmers.

• Tigers usually hunt at night, and are usually alone in their quest for their prey. Their strictlycarnivorous diet consists of deer, wild pigs, antelope, and buffalo. A tiger can jump roughly 18-20 feet! Although other large felines, such as pumas and leopards, can also take big leaps, the tiger's impressive size and weight makes its long jumps even more astonishing.

• They stalk their victims, then quickly pounce, clamping down on the animal’s neck or back of the head with sharp teeth up to three inches long. Tigers are fast and they’re ferocious, but still have a 90 percent failure rate of catching their prey.

• While tigers are capable of quietly stalking prey, the sound of their roar can’t be ignored. It can be heard as far as 1.85 miles (3 km) away!

• Although baby tigers are born helpless, weighing about 2.2 lbs (1 kg), it doesn’t take long for them to mature. At just 8 weeks, they’re already equipped to head out hunting with their mother. As tigers roam their territories seeking food, they mark the territory by scratching marks into trees with their mighty claws. In the case of the Siberian tiger, it’s no small area, with its domain reaching an area of more than 4,000 square miles (10,000 sq. km)!

• When a tiger is two years old, it’s on its own, and the mother will deliver another set of cubs, up to seven cubs in a litter. Typically, only two survive, because the female leaves them to hunt, and can’t bring home enough to feed the entire litter. A tiger in the wild lives about 14 to 18 years.

• Lions and tigers might look completely different on the outside, but their body configuration is so similar, if you shaved them, you would be unable to tell them apart! In fact, tigers even breed with lions, resulting in hybrids known as tigons and ligers.

A liger (or a tigon) is a hybrid cross between a lion and a tiger.

• In ancient times, Romans used to fight tigers with lions for sport. In all the fights tigers won easily. In one recorded fight two lions were pitted against a tiger, and again the tiger won. Tigers thrash with both front claws while

fighting, while lions in comparison use one. Tigers are bigger, have more muscle, are more ferocious and are more agile than lions.

• With less than 4,000 tigers remaining in the wild, the species is highly endangered. There are actually more tigers in captivity – about 5,000 – than live in the wild. Their population today is only about seven percent of what it was less than 100 years ago. The Bali tiger became extinct in the 1930s, the Caspian tiger in the 1950s, and the Javan tiger was last seen in the 1970s. 