Tiger: Largest member of cat family

Tigers are one of the nature's most magnificent top predator . They are largest member of cat family. Usually tiger is solitary hunter, though sometimes they can be social. Tiger once used to range widely across euro-asia. In present day number of tigers are decreasing rapidly. It is believed that beginning of 20th century , there were more than 100000 tiger in the world. Now the number of tigers are in between 3000 and 3500. Tiger is the national animal of Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and South Korea.

An adult tiger |Source

Well-known subspecies of tiger are Bengal Tiger, Siberian Tiger, Caspian Tiger, Indochinese Tiger, Malayan Tiger, South China Tiger etc. Tiger's closet living relatives were previously though to be popular cat family members like lion, leopard and jaguar. Though recent studies show that tiger and snow leopard has diverged from other cat family almost 2.88 million years ago which make tiger and snow leopard are closely related to each other than lion, leopard or jaguar.

Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives. They establish and maintain territories but sometimes their territory can override with each other which can cause confliction between tigers. Resident adults of either sex generally confine their movements to their home ranges, within which they satisfy their physical needs and those of their growing cubs. Tigers sharing the same area are aware of each other's movements and activities. The size of the home range mainly depends on available prey , and, in the case of males, on access to females. If available prey are more than enough , territory of tiger can be reduced. But in absence of potential prey territory of tiger can be huge. Usually tigress have a territory of 20 square km, while the territories of males are much larger can be as big as 100 square km .

In general male tiger doesn't have any participation of raising cubs. So it s up to female to raise the cubs. Young tiger depends on their mother as long as 2 years. Though at the age 16 months tigers are fully developed, but have lack hunting skill. Female tigers usually give birth 2 to 5 cubs at a time. Survival rate of tiger cubs are less than 50%. In first 2/3 months cubs totally depend on their mother milk for nutrition.

Female tiger with her cubs | Source

In wild, tiger would all kind of available prey in its territory . They are the supreme hunter, which they don't have any predator. An adult tiger would need almost 10-12 pounds meat everyday to survive. Tiger usually hunt alone and like to ambush their prey with an element of surprise. It s almost impossible for prey to detect the presence of tiger until it s too late to escape. Tiger are born killer. They can easily kill animal which are larger than them in a matter of time. Despite their large size, tiger can reach up to 65km/h but only for short time. That s why tiger must reach as close as possible before being detected by its prey. Tiger are very skillful to move without sound through the dense forest. If prey detects the presence of tiger, they usually call off the hunt rather than chasing its prey.

Deer, one the most favorite prey of Tiger | Source