Video of Bengal tigers having a pool party to tolerate the heat

-

Bearing in mind global warming and also bearing in mind that tigers love water, it is unsurprising to see a party of them lounging around in a nice pool in a reserve. The wildlife ranger who posted the video to Twitter via a colleague says that river sources sometimes start in tiger reserves and therefore tiger conservation in India is key to their water and food security. What I think he is saying is that if you protect the Bengal tigers in India you by necessity protect their reserves and in protecting the reserves you protect the water source which keeps billions of Indians alive! Does that sound right?

Note: This is an embedded tweet. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

I've always been interested in why the rear half of a tiger sometimes loses its orange background colouration so you end up with a black and white tiger in that part of the body. You can see this in the video. I don't see anybody mentioning this. And the books that I have on tigers don't mention it either. And I am wondering whether this is a problem with health.

Tiger pool party
Tiger pool party. Screenshot.

The image that we have of a tiger is of an orange background with dark stripes which is meant to be good camouflage in the kind of habitat in which they live. In fact, the dried-out habitat that we see in the video indicates how effective this coat can be as camouflage.

Although, tigers often live in green jungles and it makes you wonder how their coat can be camouflage in that environment. The answer, as I understand it, is that to tiger prey animals the orange tiger coat does not look orange because their eyesight does not detect reds very well and therefore the colours are muted and so perhaps, they see predominantly the markings which provide adequate camouflage to the tiger. I explore this in the linked page below.

RELATED: Why are tigers orange and not green?

Tigers are very good swimmers and they sometimes end up swimming in the sea. They can swim for miles. Perhaps of all the cats they are the best swimmers and certainly they have a very different attitude towards water and swimming than lions. That's probably partly because where they live it can be quite wet (subject to global warming) and in those parts of Africa where lions live it is much dryer.

RELATED: Can tigers swim and can tigers climb trees?

Location: India

Comments

Post a Comment

Please comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Mythology in China - Bai Hu (white tiger)

-
Image
About 6,500 years ago the Chinese divided the sky into four parts in Chinese astrology. They are north, east, west, and south. Each section contains seven stars which look like images of four mythical creatures and Bai Hu is a white tiger in charge of the west of the sky. The white tiger is a symbol of loyalty, power, justice and bravery. It was used by the military in Chinese history such as on a flag and seal. It probably still is. Bai Hu mythical white tiger from Chinese mythology. Image: Pinterest. Bai Hu represents autumn and it was believed to be a reincarnation of the tiger star, Alpha, in the Milky Way. According to I Ching, the tiger symbolises Yin or evil and the dragon symbolises Yang or good.  It roughly corresponds with the prominent constellation of Orion that dominates the autumn and winter night sky. Fiona Sunquist in her book (with her husband Mel), Wild Cats of the World , writes that "the breath of the Tiger creates the wind and the breath of the dragon c...
Read more

Do male tigers kill female tigers?

-
Image
The question is: "Do male tigers killed tigresses?" And the answer, in my considered opinion, is different when referring to wild tigers or captive tigers, which points to the source of what might be considered aberrant behaviour. If you have a different viewpoint, please comment and provide science in support please. I love good contributions. Captive female Sumatran tiger killed at London Zoo by male while zookeepers tried to get them to mate. Image: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Wild tigers In the wild, male tigers have much larger home ranges than those of females. And each male's range typically overlaps several female ranges. It seems like male tigers have a harem of females within their orbit. Consequently, there are no fights over territory between males and females, as I understand it. Clearly, fights over territory can result in the death of one tiger. Also, male tigers sometimes fight over access to a female, but this is a male-on-male fight. I have read through a lar...
Read more

Tiger paw size compared to domestic cat paw and male human hand

-
Image
This is a triple comparison focusing on the paw size of a regular domestic cat. The adult tiger paw is genuinely enormous. Its size emphasises the size of the tiger. The Siberian tiger species is the world's biggest cat. I have a feeling that the paw we see in the photo is that of a Siberian tiger. Picture comparing domestic cat paw size with tiger paw size and human hand (male). Image: MikeB The strength of the tiger is very apparent in this photograph. Physically tigers are very powerful. They are burly animals supremely well equipped to single-handedly capture and subdue very large prey animals. Their strength is legendary being able to drag large prey animals across rough ground and even uphill over considerable distances to cache the animal before consuming it. The skull is large and foreshortened. This increases the bite force at the tips of the amazing set of canine teeth. The neck is short and the shoulders are broad. The forelimbs are massive, ideal for grappling with pre...
Read more