DESCRIPTION: Undoubtedly the most
charismatic animal of India, the majestic tiger has a tawny orange coat
patterned with broad black stripes. The stripe patterns on the body are unique
and each individual can be identified by this pattern. The underparts of the
tiger are pure white as are patches around its eyes and on its cheeks. The back
of each ear is black with a winking white spot on it as well. The eyes are
large, round and forward-facing, a characteristic that helps the animal in the
forest catch its prey but captivates the world instantly, giving it a charismatic
mega-fauna status that rivals none. The ears are rounded, small and placed
apart on the top of the head. The whiskers are long and are important for sensing.
The nose pad is flesh coloured. The whole head is set almost onto the body with
a short muscled neck that combines with its long canines to bite long and deep
into the prey. Its dentition is well suited to its position as the top carnivore
of the Indian forests. The tiger’s hind limbs are much longer than the
forelimbs, but the latter are thick and powerful with a large paw that is built
to strike down large prey. It tail is long, slim and banded with black rings
almost to the tip. It possesses scent glands in the anal region, toes, tail
region and cheeks, as in most cats. Tigers have high variability in coat
colour, and across the globe and even in India some variation is seen in the
intensity of the orange colour or the darkness of the coat. The same is true of
body size, with some regions reporting larger animals on the whole than others.
Melanistic and white tigers are the best-known coat variations in the tiger in
India, but this is not due to albinism as is popularly believed. The White
Tiger which originated around Rewa in Madhya Pradesh was caused by a recessive
gene that inhibits yellow and red pigments while allowing black pigments to be
exhibited. In nature, this freak does not survive but its immense popularity in
captivity has led people to think at times, erroneously, that this is a
separate species. Similarly, tigers around Odisha tend to have a rare colour
variation known as pseudo-melanism. The black stripes appear very thick and the
tawny colour is not seen as much through the black pattern.
BEHAVIOUR: The tiger prefers to hunt large
deer, which in Indian conditions means the Sambar, where available. Quite
adaptable, it can survive on smaller prey such as Wild Pig, Spotted Deer or
even fish in the mangroves. However, it is presumed that tigers evolved because
of their unique nature of taking large prey more than 30 kg in weight. Large
animals such as rhinos, elephant calves and even bull Gaur are taken
opportunistically. Tigers hunt nocturnally as a habit, but in certain
sanctuaries have turned diurnal due to being used to tourist presence. They
stalk their prey through high grass cover or undergrowth and, with one sudden
onrush, take them down with a swipe at the neck, followed by a swift bite to
the jugular. Tigers tend to eat the prey from the backside up as opposed to leopards,
which eat belly up; this can be a useful clue to identifying the predator responsible
for killing prey. Tigers may attack humans if prey is unavailable, or if the
tiger is old or injured. Tigers with worn-out teeth (due to old age) or injury
to the forepaws such as a porcupine-quill-caused wound are known to kill and
eat humans. This behaviour has earned it the fearsome title of man-eater,
although other mammals such as the leopard, the bear or the elephant take far
more human lives in India.
DISTRIBUTION: Today, shrinking tiger
numbers and habitat are major conservation issues globally and occupy most of
the conservation space in India. It is estimated that there are only 1,600-odd
tigers left in India, comprising about per cent of the world’s population. In
India, the tiger is distributed along the Terai foothills of the Himalayas, in
north-east India, in central India (especially around the central highlands and
Satpura–Maikal landscape including Vidarbha), the Eastern Ghats and the Western
Ghats including the Nilgiri plateau. The states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,
Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have large
tiger habitats left while those in Assam, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan
support large numbers in protected areas.
HABITAT: Tigers are widely distributed within
their range in tropical dry and moist deciduous forests (a key habitat for the
species), evergreen forests and riverine forests. In the Sunderbans, it is
adapted to a mangrove habitat, in the Terai it frequents a moist
deciduous–grassland–riverine habitat complex, and in higher altitudes such as
Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, it inhabits coniferous, oak and rhododendron
forests. Tigers can exist in dry scrub and semi-arid areas of Rajasthan just as
well as above the treeline in Arunachal Pradesh, but these constitute
suboptimal habitats.
Size: 270–310 cm (male); 240–265 cm (female),
Wt: 175–260 kg (male);100–160 kg (female)
IUCN Status: Endangered
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL TIGER DAY
