, , the majority living in India. The reduction of habitat and poaching supplying the traditional Chinese medicine are the main threats to the species. " King of Animals "and zodiac sign Chinese , the tiger is also very present in the mythological Hindu , serving as a mount for Durga. Symbolic figure representing the strength and ferocity, this feline is depicted in many paintings of hunting, and was featured in many works musical and literary : Shere Khan 's Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling or Hobbes in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
Morphological description
Body
We distinguish the
skeleton of that of the tiger
lion by its members shorter and that of the
leopard by its larger size.
The tiger is the largest wild cat, it's also the biggest predator on land behind the Kodiak bear and the polar bear. This cat has a longer body than the lion, which makes it look much more massive. Measurements of the tiger vary greatly from one subspecies to another: a male Sumatran tiger will not weigh over 140 kg for 2.3 meters in total length while a Siberian tiger can reach 300 kg 3.3 meters in length . The height at the withers of the tiger can vary from 0.85 to one meter, its total length with the tail of 2 to 3.7 meters and weighing 65 to 300 kg . The weight record is held by a Siberian tiger killed in 1950 : it weighed 384 kg .
The ears of the tiger are rounded, their outer surface is black with a large white patch in the middle. The pupils are round, the iris is golden to green, sometimes blue. The nose is pink with black spots sometimes, the vibrissae are abundant over a short muzzle. The forehead is rounded. The neck is covered with a fur much thicker and thicker forming a ruff, particularly in males. The canines of the tiger are the longest of all cats present: they can reach a length of nine inches. Like all members of the genus Panthera , the hyoid bone is partially ossified, allowing it to roar .
Gowns
The tiger fur is light yellow to dark orange with black stripes. The coat is creamy white on the inside of the limbs, the chest , the throat and on the cheeks , the jaw and lower above the eyes. The black stripes are more or less abundant depending on the subspecies , sometimes double on the flanks. They differ from one individual to another and even from one side to another and form a real " identity card "or" bar code "for Tiger . The tigers live in forests are generally darker and have a larger number of scratches. In winter , the hair becomes thicker and brighter for the Siberian tiger and the Caspian tiger , . The tail is first removed and then becomes annealed to its end.
The white tiger , sometimes presented in zoos or circuses, not a subspecies or geographic race of the tiger. Some specimens were observed wild in India, but it is an individual captured in 1951, Mohan, who became the progenitor of most white tigers captive . Most white tigers have stripes black to light brown on a white coat, her eyes are blue. It is considered a mutation autosomal recessive chinchilla named, encountered in other mammals including domestic cats and rabbits . There is no case of albinism recognized. Many cases of all white tigers with no stripes, were postponed, but they were tigers whose color was very pale, and not non-existent .
The golden tiger , golden tiger or has a white coat with red marks forming kinds of stripes .
Black tigers have been reported from time to time, but the only evidence of their existence is a skin confiscated by police in October 1992. The dress has an abnormal enlargement of the stripes which join completely on his back and head, causing the illusion of a black tiger. This particular dress might be due to the expression of a gene agouti and is not a case of melanism .
Physical performance
A tiger marching strides made 55 to 80 cm long. The trail leg is 10 to 14 cm wide and 16 cm long . This is an excellent swimmer. It readily crosses the river wide 6 to 8 km and the record is held by a Sumatran tiger has passed through an inlet of 29 km wide . The tiger can run at maximum speed of 50 km / h, but over very short distances of about twenty meters .
Evolution of the species and subspecies
Evolution of the species
The lineage of panthers, Pantherinae , there has diverged 10.8 million years of the common ancestor of Felidae , then there are 6.4 million years ago, the lineage of clouded leopards Neofelis and that of Panthera . The oldest common ancestor of Panthera which we possess fossil is Panthera palaeosinensis , who lived from the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The tiger appeared before the jaguar, leopard and panther and is closely related to the snow leopard : tiger and snow leopard have diverged about two million years ago , . According to general opinion, the birthplace of the species is located in the East and Northeast Asia. The territory of the tiger would then lay on the Sunda Islands and then to the India. Fossil evidence of its presence in Japan and on the island of Borneo were also found . 73 000 years ago, tigers near extinction because of eruptions of the volcano Toba in Sumatra , which may explain the low genetic diversity of the species present .
Phylogenetic tree of the genus Panthera ,
Subspecies
The first description of the Tiger was made by Linnaeus in 1758 in his book Systema Naturae. The species Panthera tigris traditionally included eight different subspecies, but in 2004 a study on three different genetic markers from 130 tigers found a new sub-species, the Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) . The classification in nine sub-species has been adopted by IUCN in 2008 . Moreover, we note that the IUCN has made a change of author for the species (from Linnaeus to Mazk ) and that of ITIS remains the model for eight sub-species . The research on sub-species of tigers are continuing to develop plans to safeguard the most appropriate possible , .
The nine sub-species presented here are those recognized by the IUCN , among them there are three subspecies extinct :
- The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is the largest tigers. Her dress is pale brown with stripes more than black. Males often have a thick collar of white hair around his neck. Extend its populations on Manchuria , the North-East of China , the Russian and perhaps North Korea ;
- The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is fairly compact size, the stripes are widely spaced, short and wide. Subspecies in critical danger of extinction, we find the latest Chinese tigers in a reserve in southern China. He was declared " harmful "by Mao Zedong which hastened his decline. The Chinese government is now trying to save the remaining specimens;
- The Bali tiger (Panthera tigris Balice), resembling the Sumatran tiger, was mostly unknown at the time of his disappearance in the early 1930's. It is found only on the island of Bali ;
- The Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris Corbett) is small enough, its color is dark, with stripes finer and more numerous than the Bengal tiger. White markings are more pronounced. Its range covers the Thailand but also southern China , the Cambodia on Myanmar , the Laos , the Viet Nam ;
- The Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) is a subspecies described in 2004, it looks like the Indochinese tiger and lives in Malaysia ;
- The Javan tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica) is a subspecies extinct, the last Javan tiger was seen in 1972 and has probably disappeared in the 1980s, following the destruction of its habitat due to intensive exploitation of Wood Teak . It looked like the Sumatran tiger and is found on the island of Java ;
- The Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is the smallest subspecies of tiger alive . The color is very dark, the white of the abdomen is smaller, and scratches are double, thin and very tight. Males have the distinction of having a thick fur collar around the neck. It is only present on the island of Sumatra ;
- the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) has widely spaced stripes on a brown-orange. It is found mainly in India but also in Bangladesh , in Bhutan , in Nepal , west of Myanmar and southern China. This is the subspecies most common;
- the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) is a subspecies extinct in the 1970s. This tiger was fairly large, with a white belly and his head had a long neck. The territories of the Caspian tiger stretched on Afghanistan , the Iran , the Turkish , the Mongolian , and center of Russia.
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Hybrids
A couple of ligers in a park in South Korea.
Crosses were held captive between tiger and lion. The liger is the result of a cross between a lion and a tiger, the tigon that of a tiger and a lioness. The liger is generally larger than both her parents while tigon is smaller. They possess physical characteristics midway between those of their fathers and those of their mothers and are able to roar as much hiss. According to the site Messybeast, the size difference between the liger and tigon is due to an imprinted gene , that is to say a gene that is expressed differently according to gender , . The female ligers and tigrone sometimes fertile with one of the species from which they come. These crosses can occur in captivity because tigers and lions are found only very little in nature . Crossbred often forced to get a cat "non standard", these hybrid useless for conserving species, often suffer from physical and mental health .
The DOGLA would cross between a leopard and a male tiger and the Tigard cross between a tiger and a female leopard .
Behavior
. The males roam their territory regularly, which can take several weeks . All tigers, male or female, mark their territory with their urine or their droppings. To prevent intruders, they can also signal their presence by scratching the bark of trees. Outside the breeding season, or when the female raises her offspring, the encounters are avoided: Kailash Sankhala observed that a pair of tigers in the same enclosure of the Delhi zoo never borrowed the same paths and had separate areas Yet in their space reduced outside of the estrous cycle of the female .
It was reported a few exceptions to the solitude of the tigers: they are often males that females remain close, and sometimes agree to share a prey. Young tigers from the same siblings sometimes join forces to capture larger prey. However, these behaviors are not common, and encounters between tigers are often reduced to the breeding season .
The tiger often have several dens in its territory , and it uses the best fits its current needs. The territory of a tiger varies widely depending on the availability of prey. For example, in parts of India or Nepal , where prey is abundant, the male territory covers between 30 and 72 km 2 and that females may be less than 20 km 2. But in Siberia , where prey is scarce, it is 800 to 1 000 km 2 of territory for a male and up to 400 km 2 for a female Vocalizations
The tiger has a large repertoire of vocalizations , which differ according to use: presence awareness, call a female cry of attack ... The roars to agree to three kilometers , they are typically used to signal their presence to females and tigers of passage, but can sometimes indicate that hunting has been successful .
One of the vocalizations of the tiger remains "inexplicable": it is a kind of "Pook", which resembles the cry of the sambar. Its function is unknown .
The tiger is also pushing a "Ouff" nose, a sort of snorted: cry friendly named German prusten. In nature, it is issued when two tigers meet on neutral territory. This sound is produced by only two other cats: the snow leopard and jaguar .
Tigers do purr that during expiration, while cats purr also inspiration.
Hunting and diet
Methods of Hunting
The tiger is a predator twilight: he hunts preferably at sunrise and fall of the day, but can also hunt during the day . It spots its prey in sight and the ear, and rarely uses his sense of smell than enough for this activity . The tiger prefers to attack individuals young and old, weaker than those in the prime of age.
The tiger approach his prey on the lookout and the attack from the side or rear. If its prey is small, the tiger kills by breaking the cervical vertebrae , if it is large, it prefers to bite the throat and the choking . The bite to the throat prevents the horns and hooves of their prey, preventing them from getting up . The tiger is used to pull the carcass into the bushes to devour quiet and can also cover it with leaves or dirt to hide : in the Ranthambore National Park in India , there were two males and three females fold prey to a group member. This kind of behavior is rare, however .
Food
A Bengal tiger consumes only six kilograms of meat per day, depending on the size of prey is taken by 40-70 year . A tiger hunt on average require a large prey every seven to ten days .
The tiger eats only meat is an animal carnivore. The main prey of the tiger are of average weight (from fifty to two hundred pounds), it mainly attacks wild boar and deer . The diet of tiger varies according to subspecies and its habitat and includes the gaur , the sambar , the buffalo , deer axis , the monkey , etc.. It tackles some thorny animals porcupines , but also to larger prey such as bears , and leopards , small rhinoceros and elephants or crocodiles .
Thanks to its hind legs longer than the earlier, the tiger has a knack for jumping. In addition, it has powerful muscular shoulders. This predator has a physique suited for large prey, like other felines impressive.
Predatory opportunist , the tiger will not refuse to address the livestock , or carrion . If necessary, it can also show cannibalistic .
Man Eater?
The tiger is the cat with the highest reputation of man-eating , including India. This does not mean that the human is an integral part of their diet, but sometimes certain individuals to attack humans, especially in India.
The famous cases of man-eating tigers are not lacking. The tigress nicknamed the "eater of Champawat man" who was shot by the hunter Jim Corbett in 1907 had killed no fewer than 438 people in eight years .
Major fatal accidents occur at a fortuitous contacting between man and animal, which prompted the tiger to attack surprised. However, loss of canines , which are essential in the killing , is a factor: the tiger, unable to feed on large prey, it falls back on weaker prey, including humans. This fact, noted by Jim Corbett , is corroborated by testimony of Pierre Pfeffer : a wounded tiger in the jaw with a rifle butt then returned to feed on human flesh . The tigers can pass the taste of human flesh to their offspring and perpetuating a line of man-eating .
The Sundarbans, mainly composed of mangrove forest located at the mouth of the Brahmaputra , home to the last man-eating tigers: from 1948 to 1986, more than 800 people were killed , and each year there are about fifty victims Life Cycle 
The tigress is responsible only for its young.
The breeding season can occur at any time of year, but there is a peak of occurrence that varies by geographic area . During the estrus which lasts more than nine days , the female signals its presence by repeated groans and roars accompanied by a more frequent scent marking. In court, the contacts are common: the tigers mouth chew, rub against each other. When the female is ready, it takes the position typical of cats: it sits, the front legs stretched in front of her hind legs and half-folded, the male penetrates her and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck during the ejaculation. Finally, the tigress is released violently and frequently turns against the male, before embarking on a period of rest . The mating is brief but can be repeated several times a day .
The female gives birth in a remote two or three small on average (more than seven) after 93 to 114 days (between 3 and 4 months) of gestation . The interval between births is usually 10 to 20 minutes. Between each birth, the tiger eats the umbilical cord , the amnion and placenta . The young tigers remain blind to six to fourteen days, they weigh at birth from 750 to 1600 lbs. The female takes care of the education of young children; the tiger is not involved in their education. The tigress does not hesitate to move frequently from one lair to another to protect them from predators. They start to play right one month , the tigress leaves no scope to touch the meat for forty days and the withdrawal takes place two months .
The young stay with their mothers to learn to hunt. Unlike lions , tigers youth eat first, and only when satisfied that the tiger began his meal. The tiger is also very protective and eliminate or avoid any danger (male tigers, including the father, men, etc..) Towards a year, youth are able to hunt alone . Conflicts multiply around the prey to eighteen to twenty-one months and the males are the first to leave the family circle , followed by females .
In nature, tigers reach sexual maturity at the age of three or six years for males and around three years for the female . The tiger can no longer reproduce from fourteen . The mother returned to estrus eighteen to twenty months after the birth of the young tigers . A study in Chitwan National Park , in Nepal , revealed a mortality of 34% for children under one year and 29% for the second year. For the first year, 73% of deaths were due to loss of entire litter because of flood , of fire or infanticide. The latter reason is also the leading cause of death tigers less than a year, and young tigers are sometimes killed by other males who come to capture territory from their father . For the second year, losing an entire litter is much rarer: it reached 29% of deaths , . The lifespan of a tiger is estimated at 26 years in captivity and released at age 15 .
Ecology and Distribution
Habitat of the Tiger
The tiger accommodates more than two hundred different habitats . Of tropical rainforests for wood of conifers and birches of the Russian Far East through the mangroves of the Sundarbans , tiger demonstrated a high adaptability, although a preference for land with high vegetation giving it a good hunting ground and a good shelter . In 2008 , in Bhutan , when it was thought that the tiger is not met up to 3000 meters , the fingerprints and photographs of tigers showed that this predator could find between 3700 and 4300 m: it could be pushed as the tiger on altitudes higher is because of global warming , either because of pressure exerted by the man, another possibility is that the tiger has always lived at such heights, but no would have never been observed so far .
Distribution
The tiger's range has declined sharply since the nineteenth century. It stretched from eastern Turkey to the Russian Far East and on the islands of Sumatra , to Java and Bali : it covered almost all of Asia, with the exception of the chain of ' Himalayas.
Today, the last surviving tigers than in fourteen countries: India , the Nepal , the Bhutan , the Bangladesh , the Myanmar , the Laos , the Thai , the Cambodian , the Malaysia , the Indonesia (Sumatra ), the China , the Russian and perhaps North Korea. The populations of the Indochina peninsula are disjoint. In India the tigers are the most numerous although most have disappeared in the last twenty five years.
In Kaziranga National Park , official estimates relate 90 to 100 individuals, constituting perhaps the densest concentration of the world.
Conservation of the tiger
Threats to the species
Natural Enemies
The tiger has few natural enemies. However, packs of dholes can attack and kill a tiger. Sometimes bears or tigers males kill young tigers .
Hunting
Hunting trophies has been a major cause of tiger decline during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The tiger hunt was indeed a popular sport settlers and maharajahs. Battues were organized during which the Tigers had little chance to survive. The tiger, animal fears for his strength and his alleged cruelty, was the predator to kill for his glory. The cat was also a man-eater, and this was also heavily hunted to reduce its population .
Trade in skins has also accelerated the hunt. In the early twentieth century , a skin worth 200 rupees , and a rug with mounted head 300. The furs were traded by local merchants and then sold as souvenirs in major Indian cities to tourists Europe . During the years 1950 to 1960, it is estimated that more than three thousand tigers were killed as trophies .
Tiger hunting is now banned in all countries where this cat lives. The poaching and loss of habitat and prey are now the main causes of population decline.
Destruction of habitat
The tiger is suffering from habitat destruction. Today, the decline of forests and natural habitats, population growth, loss of prey, the expansion of cultivated areas and increasing pollution worsen the situation. Individuals with fewer and fewer, and sometimes more distant from each other on space fragmented , are struggling to meet and reproduce.
The forest fires , the use of poison and the perpetuation of a trade or business of skin and sub-products for some traditional medicines continue to threaten the survival of the species.
Traditional Asian Medicine
In Asia , we use some parts of the body of the tiger as his bones to make traditional medicines, myths and beliefs consistent with the population. Their effectiveness is not established, and these practices help accelerate the disappearance of the species , . Trafficking of bone decreased in India and Russia . In China, it has been banned since 1993 to use extracts from the pharmacopoeia and tiger bone sailong replaced the bones of a tiger. In Taiwan, 59% of pharmacies were providing preparations of tiger bones in the early 90s and are now only less than 1% to make the end of 2009. But in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, the fight against poaching is very low and markets persist .
Farm owners in China would like to sell the bones and skins of farmed tigers died . WWF believes that poaching of wild animals would be cheaper than exploiting animals for breeding and instead it must "prevent by all means, the captive breeding of tigers mercantilist" .
Protection
History protective actions
In 1969, the zoo's director of Delhi said that "The tiger is about to disappear! " . Tiger hunting is banned in 1970, but in 1973 the Project Tiger was launched by Indira Gandhi in India : the national parks are turned into reserves , which it is forbidden to access the heart to reserve a breeding center in tiger. Buffer zones, where the authorities regulate the passage, are managed. The program works: in the 1980s, Indian authorities announced that tiger populations have more than doubled . However, the project ran out of steam after the death of Gandhi in 1984 : popular pressure to exploit the forests on local politicians to reduce buffer zones, pressure all the more popular that power is decentralized to New Delhi and the people s 'increase, always demanding more space. The results of Project Tiger is also criticized: the counting of tigers was done by identifying the paw prints, imprecise method, and administrators tended to inflate their results to justify the money paid by the State .
From 1986 , we discover with surprise that the Tigers 'disappear': it then becomes aware of poaching for traditional Chinese pharmacopoeia. This is in effect only from the late 1980s that poaching emerged: until now, China Tigers "sufficient" to meet demand. It is difficult to quantify the impact of poaching on tiger populations in India, the Wildlife Protection Society estimates that 94 tigers were killed in 1994 and 116 in 1995 . In addition, poaching of tigers is linked to that of the chiru , a Tibetan antelope, whose wool is highly prized: tiger bones are exchanged against chiru wool recovered from the carcass . The revelation of poaching caused a crisis within the Conservative community: all efforts seemed futile, trafficking in tiger bone is also perpetuated in Indochina , and Siberia. After much bickering between supporters of the conservation in situ and ex situ, after various proposals unrealistic , global equities were conducted :
- In 1994, representatives of many countries where tigers live meet to fight together against the illegal trade of tiger;
- In 1995, the Save the Tiger Fund, financed by the company Exxon and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, aims to strengthen the action of reserves , for example by creating forest corridors to prevent isolation tiger populations, and stop the illegal trade .
- The ban on trade in tiger bone in China was the result of many pressures from the international community.
In 2010, thirteen heads of government and Vladimir Putin and Robert Zoellick (President of the World Bank ) met to allocate a fund of 350 million dollars to the tiger conservation .
Legal status
All subspecies of tiger is classified in Schedule I of CITES since 1975 , except for the Siberian tiger , which belonged to the CITES Appendix II until 1987 , which means that its trade is prohibited unless special permission .
The species is also considered Endangered (EN) by the IUCN since 1986 . The sub-species may have a different status: the Siberian tiger was considered Critically Endangered Species (EC) from 1996 to 2008 before returning to its status as Endangered , the Chinese tiger and the tiger Sumatra are considered critically endangered in since 1996 , , and tigers of the Caspian, Bali and Java are considered Extinct (EX).
The tiger is protected by national laws of all countries where it is present in the wild .
Population
Presence in situ
In 1900, it is estimated that the tiger population had reached 100,000 people including 40,000 in India . For the gene pool of a species to be viable, should not that its population decreases below 5000 . In 2008, their population is estimated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature between 1361 and 2056 specimens capable of reproduction with 1411 people in India .
Currently, there are in India twenty-three nature reserves specially created for the preservation of the tiger. In Nepal , three qualifications are eligible to host Tigers: This is the a href = "Parc_national_royal_de_Chitwan" class = "mw-redirect" title = "Royal Chitwan National Park"> Royal Chitwan National Park and Wildlife Reserves Royal Bardia and Shukla Phanta. The tiger is present in nineteen reserves Thailand , fourteen protected areas in Vietnam , five reserves in Sumatra Among the measures taken to protect tigers include the establishment of a plantation of fuelwood and timber by WWF, the Association of users and the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park , to limit the use of forest resources of the park by surrounding villages. Thus, the pressure on the environment is relaxed and the tiger encounters man-tiger rare . But cohabitation is not as smooth everywhere. In 2002, it is only through the intervention of the WWF that Kelantan has not launched a campaign to eradicate feline . In India, where tigers attacking livestock, ranchers receive compensation. But the latter, low value and paid late, is not very effective . Finally, animal movement can be considered, as in Sumatra after the death of 6 people following the attacks of tigers, but the method has not yet proved its effectiveness .
Presence ex situ
The captive breeding to maintain a population of tigers living whatever happens to the wild population, but also through public affection for this kind of support in situ conservation programs: for example, the campaign Tigre third campaign for the protection of wild life led by the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA) has raised more than 700 000 for the association Tigers 21st Century . Another action of zoos is to allow the actions of research on the tiger to better understand its biology. However, attempts to reintroduce captive-bred tigers have not been successful .
To keep the species alive in a lasting way, zoos are organizing to maintain genetic variability of captive specimens. The Siberian tiger and the Sumatran the subject of a European Breeding Programme (EEP) . These two subspecies and the Indochinese subspecies are also part of a U.S. program for endangered species (SSP) .
The tiger breeds very well in captivity, leading some zoos to use means of contraception to control population, and sometimes the euthanasia . It is likely that tigers in captivity are more likely than wild tigers, if one takes into account the individuals coming from hybridization between subspecies. In 2004, the international studbook has 660 tigers . On March 19, 2009, just over 1,400 tigers are on the basis ISIS : among these, more than 400 Siberian tigers, Bengal tigers nearly 300, more than 200 Sumatran tigers and fifty tigers in Malaysia and Indochinese tigers and finally, 390 tigers or unspecified origin from hybridization .
Tigers are also popular animals in private zoos, where conditions of detention are sometimes violated the rights of animals: the tiger often suffer from nutritional problems or are the subject of intensive farming . The menagerie of circus tigers also contain numerous performances for taming : the conditions of detention of these animals are also decried by animal rights groups , who complain too cramped cages and violent training methods . However, parks for retired circus animals exist, like the circus Pinder .
Finally, there are captive breeding centers whose sole concern is to increase the number of these cats for commercial purposes: for example, a white tiger can be sold at 60 000 . In China , the breeding centers, commonly called "farms" have emerged during the ban on trade in tiger parts in 1993. It was then an investment in speculative hope that this ban is lifted, they would practice of trafficking in organs and bones of tigers . The approximately 5,000 tigers are raised and become a money pit, the owners of these farms were then pushed for the ban is lifted, at least just for China, but CITES has rejected their demands at the 14th Meeting of the Parties in 2007 .
The Tiger and the Man
Name, etymology and semantics
The female tiger is the " tigress ". The term " tigreau "was proposed by the Quebec office of the French language to designate the little tiger , , but is not in most dictionaries .
The word "tiger" derives from the ancient Greek via Latin tigris. The Greek word itself derives from the Persian tigre former meaning "arrow" (the radical tij meaning " sharpen ") . Two adjectives derived from the word tiger " tiger "striped like a tiger and" tigresque "which means anything that has to do with the tiger .
In zoology , the term tiger has also designated, by extension, number of cats in the spotted or striped: for example, the terms "American Tiger", "tiger of Brazil", "tiger of Guyana" and "Black Tiger "were formerly designated the jaguar (Panthera onca) . Moreover, it is still called "tiger cat" the oncille (Leopardus tigrinus). The jaguar is called El Tigre in many countries of South America and Central America . Many other animals have a name consisting of the word tiger, either because they are striped like the tiger shark or the Tasmanian tiger , or because they wreak havoc ( tiger pear , tiger-snake ).
In mineralogy, the Tiger Eye is a semi-precious stone of the family of quartz.
The word tiger is marked with aggressiveness , and they say a man or a woman's fierce and ruthless that it is a tiger or a tigress, and it can be "jealous as a tiger" , . Conversely, it is called " paper tiger "to describe something frightening in appearance but in fact harmless.
Representations of the Tiger
Mythology, legends and religions
Goddess
Durga on her tiger.
The tiger has an important place in mythology and beliefs Asia. In the Hindu religion , Shiva , the god of destruction, is shown wearing a tiger skin and Durga , goddess with eighteen arms, has a tiger mount .
In India , the tiger is the symbol of royalty and divine power in the Indochinese peninsula and the island of Sumatra, it represents divine punishment .
In China , the Year of the Tiger is one of twelve years of Chinese astrology. It is traditionally one of the four major creatures of Chinese art with the dragon , the phoenix and the tortoise. Many legends, such as the prince who leaves his Chui devoured by a tiger out of compassion, happy encounters with the Tiger men. Images of a white tiger are placed in homes to protect them from rats and snakes, and act of sacrifice in temples , the white tiger of the west is also a constellation associated with the west and the fall . Like the lion in Western culture, the tiger is regarded as the king of animals in China .
The martial art of the tiger symbolizes the Tiger: Strength and power. Also, it is used to stimulate the liver: He works tendon strength, and the look.
Emblematic
The tiger is the national symbol of Bangladesh , of India and Malaysia . It is also represented on the banknotes and coins from Bangladesh and is on the crest of Malaysia . The Tiger Tippu is a music box depicting a tiger killing an Englishman: it symbolizes the victory of Indian peoples on the British colonial empire .
In the field of sports , many clubs have mascot tiger . The cat was also the emblem of the Olympic Games in Seoul .
The tiger is also very present in the world of brands , with the tiger of Esso , the cereal Frosties or many names echoing the tiger as the tiger balm , the Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" or still many military vehicles ( helicopters , aircraft , tank ). A number of military units wear the badge as a tiger. The squadrons of NATO air forces with the tiger emblem are grouped in an association and are found each year at a Tiger Meet.
It is also a widely used nickname for show of force or the ferocity of a character like Georges Clemenceau, nicknamed "Tiger" , the Tamil Tigers or the economic tigers such as the Celtic Tiger or Asian tigers.
Arts
The first performances of the tiger are in the ancient Roman form of mosaics : the cat is important for fighting circus . It holds paint monumental hunting tiger Rubens that inspired many later painters other and the tables of Rousseau . The animal was also included in the tables of many other artists such as Delacroix , Charles Lapicque , Salvador Dali or Gericault . Because of its geographical proximity, the tiger is also strongly represented in Chinese art, Japanese and Indian.
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In music, the band Le Tigre is an American punk feminist. The song Eye of the Tiger " written by the band Survivor to American film Rocky III has been reused many times. The Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy is a Peking Opera , one of the eight allowed during the Cultural Revolution .
Many tigers appear in the literature, starting with Shere Khan from Jungle Book. Among the Tigers fiction, it also has the tiger of the Life of Pi , Tigger in Winnie the Pooh of Alan Alexander Milne , the tiger Louison Captain Corcoran in The Adventures of Captain Corcoran Assollant Alfred . In the field of comics is Hobbes of Calvin and Hobbes , which will attract the attention, but also include Moloch in FELDO Corey Joe or the Tiger in the jungle madness.
"Shere Khan heard the thunder
Famous Tigers Famous tigers are fewer tigers than fiction. There are, however, the notorious "Champawat tigress" man-eater, it terrorized the whole region for eight years before being shot by the hunter Jim Corbett . Among the circus tigers, one can also cite Montecore, the white tiger that attacked Roy Horn of duo tamer Siegfried & Roy . Finally, Satin is a tiger who has been in 1955 a Patsy award for his performance in the film The Gladiator (Demetrius and the Gladiators), released in 1954 .
References
Notes
- The position of the clade from the rest of Panthera is still very unclear.
- For example, if the South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis), in critical danger of extinction, belongs to the same subspecies as the Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris Corbett), then you can try reproductions captivity with it to strengthen the genetic makeup of the South China tiger.
- The Lion , social animal, needs to be dominant over the other in order to win a troop: its imprinting tends to increase the size of individuals. The lioness had developed the reverse mechanism for not having a little too big in the belly. Tigers are solitary animals, which have not developed imprinting. In the case of a cross between a lion and a tiger, little will be slightly larger, since the genetics of the tiger does not "shrink" the little ones. For a cross between a tiger and a lioness, the young will be slightly smaller: the lioness does the "shrink".
- , between late November and early April in India, between December and February to Manchuria and between February and April in Nepal.
- This may be a cave, under rocks or tree hollows.
- Provide collared each tiger, poachers hunt throughout the Asia
- For example, the Uzbekistan won in 2009 export quota of three wild Siberian tigers live
- All subspecies combined.
- Not seen by a scientist from the 1970s. By cons, some unofficial observations have been reported.
- Data extrapolated.
- The formation of the word is similar to the cub with suffix -water reducer
- The term "tigreau" is unknown to the Oxford dictionary, 2008, the dictionary of the French Academy , the National Center for lexical and textual resources or even Mdiadico.
- A few examples: Cincinnati , Hamilton Tigers , Hull City Association Football Club , SC Langnau Tigers
- Examples: Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger , Eurocopter EC-665 Tiger , Tiger Grumman F-11 , Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter II also named Tiger, Panzerkampfwagen VI Knigstiger
- See also the famous Tiger Brigades
References
- a , b , c , d , e , f and g Reference IUCN : species Panthera tigris (Mazak, 1968) (en)
- (en) Associated Press, " World tiger population shrinking fast, WWF Warns "on http://catkingdom.tribe.net/ . Accessed March 16, 2010
- (en) Reuters, " There are fewer than 3,500 wild tigers in Asia, according to a study "on http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ . Accessed September 16, 2010
- a , b , c , d , e , f and g (en), Peter Jackson and Adrienne Farrell Jackson (trans. Daniele Devitre) Cats: all species in the world, Oxford University Press , coll. "The Library Naturalist, Oct. 1996, 272 p. ( a href = "Sp% C3% A9cial: Ouvrages_de_r% C3% A9f% C3% A9rence/2603010190" class = "mw-internal-magiclink isbn"> ISBN 2-603 - 01019-0) , P.105
- a and b (en) Rmy Marion (ed.) , Cecile Callou Julie Delfour, Andy Jennings, Catherine Marion and Geraldine Veron, felines Cambridge, Cambridge , Paris, September 2005, 224 p. ( ISBN 2-03-560453 -2 and 978-2035604538 ) ( OCLC 179897108 ) , P.66
- Jackson, op. cit. p.95
- (en) Vratislav Mazak "Panthera tigris', in Mammalian Species, No. 152, May 8, 1981, p. 1-8 Notes
References taxonomic
Bibliography
- Michael Nichols and Geoffrey C. Ward (trans. Illouz Florence), The Tiger ["The Year of the Tiger], National Geographic, Paris, 2000, 156 p. ( ISBN 2-7441-2875-9 ) (En)
- Kailash Sankhala (trans. Florent Jouty), The Tiger: his morals - its history - its future, MLP Editions, 1998, 96 p. (ISBN 2-7434-1070) (En)
- Pascal Picq and Franois Savigny, Tigers, Odile Jacob , Evreux, October 2004, 192 p. ( ISBN 2-7381-1342-7 ) (En)
- John Seidensticker, Peter Jackson, Sarah Christie, Riding the tiger: tiger conservation in human-dominated landscapes, Cambridge University Press, 1999, 383 p. ( ISBN 0521648351 and 9780521648356 ) [ read online ] (In)
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Panthera tigris 
Jaguar 
Lion Leopard Snow leopard 
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