Tiger Facts

Size
The head-body length of a tiger is 4 ½ to 9 feet. The length of the tail is 3 to 4 feet. The foot pads vary in size with age.

Weight
Siberian tigers are the heaviest subspecies at 500 or more pounds, with males heavier than females. The lightest subspecies is the Sumatran; males weigh about 250 pounds and females around 200 pounds.

Food
Tigers prey primarily on wild boar and other swine, and medium to large deer such as chital, red deer, and sambar. Where they occur together, tigers also hunt gaur, a huge wild cattle. Tigers sometimes kill domestic animals such as cows and goats. After killing their prey, tigers drag the animal to a safe place, consuming it over the course of several days, typically tigers will fill themselves on fresh kills, and can eat as much as 46 pounds of meat at one sitting.

Life Span
The life span of tigers in the wild is thought to be about 15 years.

Reproduction
Females give birth to two to four cubs. Cubs are usually suckled for up to 6 months and once weaned, join their mother hunting. By the age of 18 months, the cubs are able to feed themselves and leave their mother.

Colors
Tigers generally have black stripes on a rusty orange background, and there is such a thing as a white tiger. All white tigers are Bengals. All white Bengals in captivity in the USA originated from one white male Bengal captured in India in 1951 and inbred with his offspring. Only Bengal tigers have the double recessive gene that causes the white coloring. White tigers are not albino.

Habitat
The tiger's current distribution is a patchwork across Asia, from India to the Russian Far East. Tigers require large areas with forest cover, water, and suitable large ungulate prey such as deer and swine. With these three essentials, tigers can live from the tropical rainforests of Sumatra and Indochina to the temperate oak forest of the Amur River Valley in the Russian Far East.

Interesting Facts
Like domestic cats, tiger claws are retractable. Tiger scratches on trees serve as territorial markers.

The tiger hunts alone, primarily between dusk and dawn, traveling 6 to 20 miles in a night in search of prey.

Except for a mother and her cubs, tigers live and hunt alone. But that does not mean they are not social. Scent marks and visual signposts, such as scratch marks, allow tigers to track other tigers in the area, and even identify individuals.

The Tasmanian Tiger, also called the Tasmanian Wolf, is a large marsupial native to Tasmania. Most scientists believe it to be extinct, however each year there are about a dozen unconfirmed sightings in remote areas of the state, and several reported sets of Tiger tracks.

Sub Species
There are 8 sub species