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Animals · Rainforest and jungle

Tiger

Panthera tigris

The largest cat on the planet

A Bengal tiger moves through tall grass, where its dark stripes break up its body outline and hide it.
A Bengal tiger moves through tall grass, where its dark stripes break up its body outline and hide it.
  • Status: Endangered
  • Forests and jungles of Asia, from India to Siberia and Sumatra

Numbers

Weight
400 lbcentral value of the range indicated by the material, from 140 to over 660 lb; Wikidata reports 400 lb and 260 lb, likely male and female
Length
9,4 fttotal length including the tail, from 6.5 to 12 feet
Height
39 inshoulder height, from 33 inches to 4 feet depending on the subspecies
Lifespan
10 yearsfrom 10 to 15 years in the wild
Canines
4 inthe longest among all cats
Maximum recorded weight
847 lbmale Siberian tiger, 1950
Record length
13,7 ftSiberian male killed in the Soviet Union

Ten fun facts

  1. its canine teeth reach four inches in length and are the longest among all living cats.

  2. its hyoid bone is only partly ossified, which allows it to roar, just like lions, jaguars, and leopards.

  3. in 1950, a male Siberian tiger weighing 847 pounds was killed in the Sikhote-Alin mountains.

  4. the longest tiger ever recorded measured nearly fourteen feet from head to tail and was killed in the Soviet Union.

  5. smilodon, the famous saber-toothed cat, is not an ancestor of the tiger, despite a very common misconception.

  6. the extinct Ngandong tiger weighed up to 1,080 pounds, making it the largest cat ever besides Smilodon populator.

  7. white tigers are not albino; they have leucism and often suffer from crossed eyes and a weakened immune system.

  8. the last white tiger captured in the wild was named Mohan in 1951, and most captive white tigers descend from him.

  9. where tigers decline, Eurasian wolf numbers increase, and where tigers return, the wolf population falls again.

  10. its name comes from an ancient Iranian root meaning arrow or lightning, not from the Tigris River.

The quiz answers

Five questions about this animal. Pick an answer and find out if it is the right one.

Question 1 of 5

How long can a tiger's canine teeth be?

Question 2 of 5

How many tiger subspecies went extinct in the twentieth century?

Question 3 of 5

Why is the tiger able to roar?

Question 4 of 5

Are white tigers albino?

Question 5 of 5

Which is the smallest surviving subspecies of tiger?

Try it yourself

Experiment 1

Mark four inches on a sheet of paper to see the length of a tiger canine tooth. Compare it with the longest tooth you can measure at home.

Experiment 2

Unroll a tape measure for twelve feet along the hallway. That is the maximum length of a tiger from its head to the tip of its tail.

Experiment 3

Draw black stripes on orange paper with a marker, place it near tall grass, and step back. You will see how camouflage works in nature.

Data from Wikidata (Q19939) and Wikipedia (Tiger).