Tiger

Habitat

Tigers occupy a wider range of habitats than any other big cat — from the snow-forests of the Russian Far East to the mangrove tidal flats of the Sundarbans, from dry deciduous Indian forest to high-elevation Bhutanese fir. They require dense cover for stalking, abundant ungulate prey, and reliable water. Adult tigers maintain large territories: 25 to 1,000 square kilometers depending on subspecies and prey density.

Behavior

Tigers hunt almost entirely alone and almost entirely by ambush — stalking to within 20 meters and finishing in a short, devastating rush. Roughly one stalk in twenty results in a kill. They are strong swimmers and will cross wide rivers; the Sundarbans tigers actively hunt in mangrove shallows. Females raise cubs for two to three years before the young disperse. Roaring tigers can be heard for three kilometers; the lower-frequency components of the roar are below the range of human hearing and produce a physical pressure on the listener at close range.

Marginalia

• The tiger's striped coat is unique to each individual — like a fingerprint — and the stripes extend to the skin beneath the fur.
• Three of the nine known tiger subspecies — Caspian, Bali, and Javan — have all gone extinct in the last century. A fourth, the South China tiger, has not been seen in the wild for over 25 years.
• Tiger pupils are round, not slit like a domestic cat's — a feature of large diurnal-and-nocturnal predators rather than ambush hunters that target small fast prey.
• More tigers live in captivity in the United States than exist in the wild globally — by some estimates, between 5,000 and 10,000 versus roughly 3,900 wild.