3/22/2012

Tigers!!!

    Tigers are fascinating animals. For one, they are the only cats who willingly go into water to catch prey. Also, every tiger has a different pattern of stripes, like a fingerprint. There are 8 subspecies of tigers; they are the Bengal tiger, Bali tiger, Amur tiger, North Korean tiger, south china tiger, Sumatran tiger, indo-Chinese tiger, javan tiger, and the Caspian tiger. Unfortunately, the javan, Bali and Caspian tigers are extinct. All remaining subspecies are critically endangered. White tigers and black tigers are not a subspecies of tiger. They just have a genetic trait inwich they have a lot less or a lot more melin in their skin .Melin is what makes all animals’ fur particuly dark or light or medium depending on how much they have in their skin. this is also what causes panthers, which are just leopards with a lot of mellin.Tigers primarily prey on deer and wild pig although, they will eat a variety of other animals even carrion. Most tigers do not socialize with other tigers. Although, sometimes when there are cubs, males and females have been seen hanging around taking care of the cubs .Tigers used to roam most of Asia, but, sadly their range has been severely diminished. Their range is now scattered in India, Vietnam, Sumatra, china, and the Russian Far East. This is very bad because one tiger needs a lot of space for itself. One tiger’s range could be 12 to 400 square miles depending on the amount of prey in the area. Besides the threat of loss of habitat, tigers are also threatened by poaching .Tigers pelts are very valuable so that’s why they are poached illegally so much. Tigers are so interesting and amazing creatures.  Maybe that’s why Tigers have long been a source of fascination for humans. It would truly be a tragedy if these majestic creatures disappeared off the face of the earth.


P.s , i am not sure how to spell melin

1 comment:

  1. Tigers are epic. They will be epic until the day I die. Even after that, they will still be epic. By the way, people love "the rare and beautiful white tiger", but in reality they are very unlucky in the wild. The specific coloring of a tiger, orange with black stripes, is to mimic the surroundings when they're stalking pray. The orange is similar to the color of the tall fields of grass they crawl through when on the hunt, and the black imitates the grass' shadows to make it look more natural. With the genetic defect of white fur, it makes it harder for the tiger to successfully hunt. How 'bout that?
    *Hopefully someone here will regonize my nerdy reference to the Secret Series (which are seriously awesome books)

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