The Tiger

D. Smith in his work: "The role of dispersal in structuring the Chitwan tiger population" (1993) found that young tigers became independent of their mothers at seventeen to twenty-four months of age. They continued to hunt within the natal range (the home range of their mother effectively).  When do tigers become independent? 17-24 months of age. Image: MikeB This allows them to hone their hunting skills in relative safety. After doing this for a few months the young tigers 'dispersed' (left) from the natal range to find their own range at between 18-24 months of age. Male cubs learn to kill on their own and become independent earlier than females. By 15 months of age males often leave their mother for several days at a time to test independence. Females stay with their mother for longer. RELATED:  Bengal tiger travels 1300 km to find his home range and a mate . A sister and brother, both 18 months old, were watched for their behavior at this stage of their developmen...

Scientists in China wanted to assess the personality traits of Amur tigers (Siberian tigers), which I think is an interesting concept not tried before as far as I know. They probably struggled to distinguish between different personality traits as described in humans but came up with two types: majestic and steady.  In general terms they found that the majestic tigers were healthier because they had a higher status and had (by the looks of it) first pickings of prey animals. And they mate more often. That last point begs the question as to whether majestic tigers are coveted by tigresses. Do tigresses pick and choose their male mates? It looks that way. Female lions prefer males with dark and great manes for instance. It seems that female wild cats have a method for picking out the healthiest males in order to produce healthy offspring. Tigers described as majestic are healthier than others and have sex more often. Image: MikeB. AI summary This section is a summary of the study as ...

If two tigers meet in the wild, will they fight? Well, the first point to make is that in the wild, each tiger has a territory about as big as a modern city. Male ranges are a lot bigger than females' and male ranges include female ranges . Territorial ownership is marked out by spraying scented urine against trees and scratching the bark with sharp claws. This is a way of tigers preventing meeting up. It's a way of keeping them apart because they realise that fights between rivals can be so damaging even to the winner that it may impair their survival. So male tigers avoid other male tigers and female tigers avoid other female tigers. When a male tiger meets a female even outside the breeding season there is a small friendly greeting using a close call sounding like: fuf-fuf-fuf . But there are two instances under which tigers might fight: times of flux and tension over resources and territory. The most sought-after resources for a male tiger in the wild are female tigers and...