The Indochinese tiger, whose photo is in front of you, is named after the naturalist from England Jim Corbett. In Latin, the name of the handsome striped man sounds like Corbetti.
Unfortunately, today this animal is on the verge of extinction. In Vietnam, the locals were convinced that the Corbett tiger was endowed with the ability to turn into a person.
Indochinese tiger: description
Indochinese tigers cannot boast of particularly huge sizes. In this regard, they are inferior to the Amur and Bengal subspecies. The body of an Indochinese handsome man is elongated, very flexible and muscular. It reaches a length of 2.4-2.9 m, an average weight of 110-190 kg, although there are "boys" weighing up to 250 kg. Females are significantly smaller than males.
The head is round in shape with small ears. The forehead is convex, there are 30 teeth, the upper canines are very large. Predator with his tongue is able to strip skin from meat and meat from bones of prey. The fact is that there are sharp tubercles in the tongue.
The tail is long, extremely mobile. The forelimbs are more powerful than the hind limbs. On paws there are retractable claws.
The main background color can be from red-orange to the color of dark ocher. There are, of course, black narrow stripes, in some cases they take the form of spots. There are no stripes or spots on the front legs. White color is observed on the throat, belly, cheeks and inner side of the paws.
Habitat
Indochinese tiger is a subspecies that lives in Southeast Asia. In natural conditions, it can be found in Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Indochinese tiger: lifestyle
The Corbett Tiger is an extremely secretive and solitary animal. It is very difficult for zoologists to collect data about it, therefore, the lifestyle of Indochinese tigers is still not fully understood. In the natural environment, these predators live up to 16-18 years, in captivity - up to 24-26 years.
Indochinese tiger prefers to live on the banks of the Saluin and Mekong rivers, in dry tropical and subtropical moist forests, on hilly and mountainous territories.
The striped predator hunts, mainly for big game. Its menu consists of: bulls, deer, wild pigs … If you can’t catch such a game, the tiger will enjoy a monkey, porcupine, birds, fish or reptiles. Sometimes, in the absence of a better option, the beast can feed on carrion.
This beautiful powerful animal has the same powerful voice. A tiger can growl, meow, hiss … The range of sounds is very wide.
Predator character
Indochinese tiger is a predator that hunts at night or at dusk. Loot lurks from an ambush, but you can’t call him lucky, since only one out of ten attempts becomes effective. Prefers to lie down in the shade during the day. She is not afraid of water, on the contrary, likes to swim in hot days.
The Indochinese tiger has sharp eyesight and excellent hearing. The smell is much worse. Vibrissas serve as a beast organ of touch. Compared to other species of tigers, Corbetta is considered not high, but the striped animal is very strong. You can’t call him slow, it can reach speeds of up to 70km / h. and walk long distances in a day. The jump of this handsome man is 10 meters.
As mentioned earlier, the Indochinese tiger lives alone. Females are only forced to spend most of their lives raising offspring. Males do not take part in this. Each predator has its own territory, the borders of which he marks with scrapers on trees and urine. The male occupies a much larger area than the female. His possessions are partially overlapped by areas of females. Each beast violently defends its "home", preventing the invasion of other tigers on the territory occupied by it.
The striped predator loves to move around the possessions along abandoned paths, overgrown with young trees and bushes that people laid during the harvesting of the tree.
Mating season
When the mating season begins, the males mate with the female neighbors, those whose possessions border on the possessions of the tiger. There are no specific dates for the mating of these predators; breeding takes place throughout the year, but nevertheless, winter is the preferred time for mating games of striped handsome men.
These animals are considered sexually mature from 3-5 years old, “girls” are earlier. When a tigress begins to estrus, she marks the boundaries of her possessions with urine. In this way, the male neighbors will immediately learn that she is ready for the mating season. If the female liked several cavaliers at once, then they, in order to achieve the location of the chosen one, arrange fights among themselves. One female can mate with several males; her cubs will then be from different fathers.
The mating season lasts about 6-8 days. All this time the male and female live together, hunt together and sleep side by side, mating dozens of times during the day.
Progeny
The female leads offspring once every two years. In its womb wears calves about 96-113 days. During pregnancy, the tigress looks after a safe, inaccessible place for the lair, and childbirth occurs there.
In one litter there are 2-3 helpless kittens. Cubs are born deaf and blind. It is sad to say that 35% of the cubs die, not even marking their first year of life.
About 7 days after birth, the striped babies begin to see. Teeth (milk) begin to grow by two weeks of age, permanent fangs grow by the year. Lactation of the nursing female lasts up to six months, but already at 2 months the cubs begin to taste meat.
From the age of six months, the mother begins to teach the young to hunt small prey. At the age of eight months, young tigers accompany the tigress - mother on the hunt. This continues until they turn one and a half years old. At this age, the "boys" leave their native den and enter an adult independent life. “Girls” stay with their parent much longer (20-28 months).
