Tigers scent-mark their territory just like house cats. The scent gives a tiger plenty of information about its relative — from gender and age to the reproductive function state.
If male and female tigers claim the same prey, males typically back off. This differs tigers from lion males, who use their great power and drive weak females off.
The tiger's pattern of stripes comes from the very skin. So even if a tiger is shaved, you'd still see the stripes on its skin.
Although many cats hate water, tigers are great swimmers and can cover many kilometers during hunting. Actually, they quite often play in rivers and lakes, swimming just for fun.
The liger is the largest feline. It can weigh up to 450 kilograms with a length of 4 meters. A liger is a hybrid offspring of a male lion and a female tiger.
A tigress can get pregnant only a few days a year. So it's quite normal that they mate again and again these days to raise the chances for a tigress to get pregnant. The gestation period for tigers takes a bit more than three months and often results in the offspring of 2–4 tiger cubs.
Tigers don't view humans as prey. However, hungry tigers still can attack a human if no other habitual prey is nearby. There are cannibals among tigers, but this is rather an exception to the rule.
Tigers can't purr. Closing eyes indicate they enjoy something. Vision is an essential sense for tigers. They express their feeling of absolute calmness and certain safety by closing their eyes.
Despite their heaviness, tigers are able to dash up to 65 kilometers per hour.
Tigers do not chase their prey while hunting. If a sudden rapid ambush attack failed, chasing doesn't last longer than 100–150 meters.
Tigers and bears interact quite aggressively in nature. It even happens sometimes for these predators to hunt each other, most often during starving times.
Tiger saliva is an excellent natural sanitizer. The animal licks wounds to disinfect them and hasten healing.
Today there are six species of survived tigers: Amur, Malayan, Bengal, Indochinese, Sumatran and the South China tiger. All of these species are red-listed and protected by law. Worst of all is the situation with the Amur tiger.
Three tiger species have become extinct in less than a century: the Bali tiger, the Caspian tiger, and the Javan tiger.
Tigers are solitary animals. Furthermore, tigresses raise their cubs in solitude until they get stronger and grow up enough to go searching for their own place.
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