Tigers

Status: Endangered

Description:Dark verticical stripes on reddish-orange fur with a light underside.

Habitat: Live in Southeast Asia. They prefer swamp and rain forest areas. They like to be covered by trees, bushes, and tall grass.

TigerPanthera tigris

Behaviors & Communication:Territorial, agressive, nocturnal.They roar for communication to young, after catching prey, and to call for a mate.

Prey & Predators:Feeding ranges from termites up to elephant calves. Usually prey on animals 45 pounds or larger.Tigers try to aviod buffalo, bears, elephants, and humans unless they attack first.

Interesting Facts:Tigers can weigh up to 660 lbs. and run up to 40 mph.More tigers are held as pets than out in the wild. They are powerful swimmers, and enjoy the water for relaxation.Tigers seem to be able to taste salt, bitter, and acidic flavors better than sweetness.Scent glands between tigers toes leave behind an individual scent that enables a cub to follow a mother's footsteps. The markings on tigers forehead closely resembles the chinese marking "king," giving tigers a cultural staus as "the animal on top."Tigers have antiseptic saliva. They can disinfect their own wounds.Tigers can prduce hybrids with other cats in the wild.

Special Senses:Vision: Tigers have "rods" rather than "cones." This helps detects shapes more than color which helps more at night. Touch: They have five different types of whiskers that detect sensory information and differentiate from location on the body. Smell: Tigers use smell for communicating information with one another such as territories and reproductive status. They hardly ever use their scense of smell for hunting.