Facts about tigers
Unlike domestic cats, tigers love to swim! Tiger colors and stripes act as camouflage. It is also one way to identify each animal. Just like house cats, tigers have retractable claws. Tiger claws are used to catch prey and to help mark their territory by leaving scratch marks on trees. Tigers also mark their territory with urine and feces. A pugmark is a tiger's paw print. Tiger night vision is six times better than that of a human. Tigers can live up to 20 years in zoos and typically 10 to 15 years in nature. Adult tigers can consume up to 90 pounds of food at one sitting. After a large meal, they may not eat again for one to two weeks. You can hear a tiger roar over a mile away! Tigers have been called man eaters, yet they eat frogs, monkeys, porcupines fowl, and tortoises, especially when a good deer is hard to find. Tigers have eyes that are the brightest of any other animal in the world. At dusk, or in the beam of a torch, they blaze back the ambient light with awe-inspiring intensity. There are five different kinds or subspecies of tiger alive in the world today. These tigers are called Siberian, South China, Indochinese, Bengal, and Sumatran. Tigers are an endangered species; only about 5,000 to 7,400 tigers are left in the wild. Three tiger subspecies, the Bali, Javan, and Caspian tigers have become extinct in the past 70 years. They live in steamy hot jungles as well as icy cold forests. Tigers are the biggest cats in the world. Tigers can be as long as 11 feet in length! The size of a tiger's territory depends on the amount of food available, and usually ranges from about 10 to 30 square miles (26-78 sq. km). Siberian tigers sometimes have really big territories (as large as 120 square miles). Although tigers usually live alone, tiger territories can overlap. A male tiger's territory usually overlaps those of several female tigers. The heaviest tiger recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records is a 1,025-pound male Siberian tiger. Young tigers live with their mother until they are two to three years old, then they find their own territories. Unlike some big cats like lions, adult tigers like to live alone (except for mother tigers with cubs). This is partly because in the forest, a single tiger can sneak up and surprise its prey better than a group of tigers can. |
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