What kind of tigers are the most numerous and the largest?

This year is the Year of the Tiger

Many people like tigers

But you don't necessarily really understand tigers

In fact, tigers are divided into many subspecies

And different subspecies have different body shapes, patterns and habits

Let's take you to meet you today

Silgeon Tiger

The first thing we want to appear is the Siberian tiger we are most familiar with. It is a tiger living in Northeast my country and Siberia in Russia, so it is also called a Siberian tiger.The Siberian tiger can weigh more than 300 kilograms.

On January 15, the Siberian tiger in the Siberian tiger forest garden in Heilongjiang rested on the snow. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Tao

Silorian tigers like to be alone and do not like to be with other tigers. If two Siberian tigers appear in one place and they do not attack each other, they can basically be judged as one male and one female. Siberian tigers like to attack prey, attack prey's throat, bite the throat and suffocate the prey to death. They are a thorough assassin and do not hunt in groups like lions.

The Siberian tiger's body color is brown-yellow in summer, and the winter is light yellow in winter. There are multiple horizontal rows of narrow black stripes on the back and body sides, usually 2 are close to willow leaves. The head is large and round, and several black horizontal lines on the forehead are often colluded in the middle, which looks very similar to the word "king", so it is known as "king of the jungle".

South China Tiger

I believe everyone is familiar with South China tigers, and their stories can often be heard in recent years. The South China tiger is a tiger subspecies unique to China. It is distributed only in China and lives in central and southern China. It is also known as the "Chinese tiger". It has become extinct in the wild. The number is not optimistic, and they basically live in human breeding centers, such as zoos. At present, our country is doing its best to protect and breed South China tigers, hoping that one day this species can return to nature.

South China tiger photographed at Shanghai Zoo on October 11, 2021. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Jiansong

It is understood that the South China tiger is primitive than other tiger species, the ratio of skull length to skull width is larger, the body is slender, and the abdomen is thinner. The head is round, the ears are short, the limbs are thick and strong, the tail is long, the chest and abdomen are mixed with milky white, the whole body is orange-yellow and covered with black horizontal lines. The South China tiger has a smaller individual and is one of the few smallest subspecies among the tiger species.

The South China tiger is a typical mountain forest-dwelling animal. It lives in tropical rainforests and evergreen broad-leaved forests in southern China. It also often appears in mountain deciduous broad-leaved forests and coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest areas such as mountain ridges, dwarf shrubs and gravel ponds..

South China tigers live alone, do not come in groups, and mostly move at night. They have a developed sense of smell, quick movements, good at swimming, but not good at climbing trees.

Bangladesh Tiger

The Bengal tiger is also known as the Indian tiger. The tiger in "Pi's Fantasy Drifting" is just it. The wild male Bengal tiger weighs 160-270 kg, second only to the Siberian tiger. The habitat range is extensive, including Himalayas coniferous forests in the alpine areas, swamp reeds, dry hills on the Indian Peninsula, lush rainforests and dry broad-leaved forests in northern India, and mangrove areas along the coast of the South Asian subcontinent. They often move alone, and only live together during the breeding season. No fixed nests, and often wander in the mountains and forests to find food. Can swim, not good at climbing trees.

A Bengal tiger was photographed on July 29, 2016 at the Kathmandu Zoo, the capital of Nepal. Xinhua News Agency, photo by Sunil Sharma

The Bengal tiger is a powerful predator. It is ideal for hunting large prey, with short and muscular forelimbs and long, sharp retractable claws. It also has a slender, strong and flexible body, a short, thick neck and wide and powerful shoulders that are conducive to catching and subduing other large preys. The shortening of the skull increases the strength that the jaw can stretch, allowing the tiger to tightly bite the captured prey.

The Bengal tiger is the most numerous and most widely distributed tiger subspecies in the world. In 1758, the Bengal tiger was designated as a model species of tiger by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. Bangladesh tigers are mainly distributed in India and Bangladesh, and are rare animals in these two countries.

Indochina Tiger

Indochina tiger is referred to as Indochina tiger for short. It split from the Malayan tiger and was considered a different subspecies in 2004.

Indochina tiger is a slightly smaller body among all tiger subspecies. Its body length is generally only 2.55-2.85 meters, its weight is only 150-195 kilograms, and the female tiger is even at least 100 kilograms. This body size can only rank fourth in the current tiger's body size ranking.

Indochina tigers and Bengal tigers are very similar in appearance. They both have orange-yellow background hair and black vertical stripes on their bodies, especially on their foreheads, with "king"-shaped stripes. But what is more special is that there is a pair of white patches similar to eyebrows above the eyes of the Indochina tiger, and there are also large white patches on the cheeks and throat. At the same time, its stripes are much thinner than those of the Bengal tiger.

Malayan Tiger

When it comes to Malay tigers, many people are relatively unfamiliar with it because it is the last one named in the tiger subspecies. Before 2004, Malayan tigers were widely considered to be a population of Indochina tigers. Later, after careful study of the Malay tiger in a genetic diversity laboratory in the United States, scientists found that the genes were quite different from those in the Indochina tiger, and were more similar to the Sumatra tiger, so they defined it as a new subspecies.

Newborn Malayan tiger cubs photographed on February 7, 2017. These three Malayan tigers were born on February 3, 2017. Image source: Xinhua News Agency/American Union

The Malay tiger is slightly larger than the Sumatra tiger, which is equivalent to the average weight of an African lioness. Malayan tigers are typical mountain forests. They live in tropical rainforests and evergreen broad-leaved forests in the central and southern regions of the Malay Peninsula. They move around rivers between the forests and often appear in mountainous areas such as ridges, dwarf shrubs, and rocky or gravel ponds. These places are conducive to predation. It was once found around barren farmland areas, but rarely appears near human settlements and roads.

Malayan tigers hunt sam deer, muntjac, wild boars and livestock, and tigers in Malaysian national parks also hunt malay bears. Its staple food may also include Indian bison and Malay tapir.

Sumatra Tiger

Compared with the previous species of tigers, Sumen Tiger is the smallest subspecies of the same species. The male weighs only 100-150 kg, while the female weighs only 75-100 kg. Three Sumatra tigers plus one piece are almost equivalent to one Siberian tiger.

The Sumatra tiger has the darkest fur of all tigers, and its black stripes are prominent, with very small spacing between the stripes, and often in pairs of arrangements, with stripes also in front legs.