The Tiger

The video on this page shows a Bengal tiger in India (I believe) sauntering down a road and behind him/her is one of their classic prey animals, a deer, a mere 50 yards away. The tiger is entirely disinterested, probably sated on a meal not long before but it is a slightly incongruous video because we are used to seeing tigers attacking prey animals at anytime and anywhere within their habitat. This is not the case. Interestingly, when you read about the iconic tiger, you don't really anywhere about tigers shunning their dinner; shunning the chance to attack a prey animal such as we see in the video. We think they simply don't do it and attack anything that comes before them on their travels. This apparently is incorrect. Bengal tiger ignores prime prey behind it no more than 50 metres away. Screenshot. But if a tiger is going to be satisfied with eating almost anything they can catch as my reference book states, it implies that they will attack almost any prey animal but once ...

INDIA: Okay, a bird is an animal but you get the point. It is both a neat but brutal video. Fortunately, the magnificent Indian peafowl, Pavo cristatus , escaped the equally magnificent 'Royal Bengal tiger' aka the Bengal tiger. Not sure why they bother to call it royal. Technically this is a Bengal tiger. The bird and cat are bound to meet from time to time in India. The Bengal tiger is critically endangered. Its population - mainly in India - is pretty stable but very low. You can find out all you want about the Bengal tiger on this website so please feel free to search.  I will dip my toe into information about the Indian peafowl. It is also known as the common peafowl and blue peafowl. It is native to the Indian subcontinent. Although it has been introduced to many other countries. The male of the species is referred to as a peacock and the female is referred to as a peahen. Colloquially they are both referred to as peacocks. Bengal tiger attacks India's national bird t...

Tigers will kill any animal that puts itself in a vulnerable position and there are few animals which the tiger avoids and does not try and kill. Elephants and rhinoceroses are rarely killed. But tigers have a tendency to attack and kill animals which are considerably larger than themselves. In fact they need large prey items in order to consume enough flesh to survive in relative comfort. Massive Indian bison can kill a tiger and you can see why. Photo in public domain. However, large prey animal such as water buffalo and Indian bison (gaur) can be very formidable, dangerous and there are records of tigers being killed by these animals often after a gruesome and deadly struggle. Scientists have recorded these events and I can repeat a couple of their accounts here. A scientist called Anderson reported a long battle in which an Indian bison repeatedly gored and trampled to death a tiger. The undergrowth where the battle happened was trodden down and flattened. "The undergrowth ...