The Amur tiger is from the family Felidae. Felids are carnivorous cats that are highly specialized hunters. The Amur tiger and the other cats belonging to this family have distinct physical characteristics that place them into the family Felidae. Felids have short rostrums, a vestigial or absent baculum, and retractable claws. These cats also have five toes on their forefeet and four toes on their hindfeet. The Amur tiger walks on it toes classifying it as a digitigrade. Felidae or cats do not crush or grind their food. Instead their carnassials are extremely well developed and their teeth work as a sheering type to tear their prey. These cats contain an exceptionally well developed sense of sight because their eyes are relatively large compared to other carnivores. The eyes being located in the front of the head allow for depth perception. Along with good eye sight, felids have a keen sense of smell and hearing but poor color vision. Some specific felids related to the Amur tiger are the African lion, bobcat, lynx, and the Amur leopard. The Amur Tiger belongs to the Kingdom Animalia, the Phylum Chordata, the Subphylum Vertebrata, the Class Mammalia, the Order Carnivora, the Suborder Feliformia, the Family Felidae and the Genus Panthera. The scientific name for the Amur tiger is Panthera tigris altaica.
The Amur tiger is the largest of all living felids. They can grow anywhere between eight and ten feet in length and weigh between 500 and 700 pounds. Like most animals the males tend to be larger than the females. The Amur tiger lives in the taiga. It is located in the mixed deciduous forests of eastern Russia, to the edge of Siberia, and just north of Korea. Some may be found in China and Korea, but most likely they are extinct in these regions. The Amur Tiger is also commonly referred to as the Siberian tiger. It got the name, Amur tiger, because these specific cats populate near the Amur River in Russia. Amur tigers live among rocky streams of mountains and high cliffs. They are known for rarely entering into open areas of land.
These felids are carnivores and hunt wild deer, boar, antelope, wolves, fox, rodents, and birds. Though they will eat whatever they can catch, wild boar will consist of half of the Amur tiger's diet. Because these cats have to wrestle their prey to the ground, they are extremely powerful and built with heavy muscular forelimbs and shoulders. Felids are adapted for jumping so their back legs are much longer than their front ones. The hunting method for these cats consists of stalking their prey and ends with a prompt rush. When attacking, they typically aim for their prey's neck with their razor-sharp canines, which will sever the cervical vertebrae, allowing for the cat to feast. The canines are long, pointed, and slightly curved for stabbing purposes. These are the teeth used for killing prey because they cause piercing wounds. The back teeth are the carnassials which are used for shredding and cutting their prey. Amur Tigers have rough rasp like tongues to facilitate in peeling skin from prey, cleaning, and grooming. Their tongues are so sharp that they alone can draw blood. A feature allowing Amur tigers to silently stalk their prey are their padded paws. The entire paw of the cat is covered with hair except the bottom of the toes. Their claws are long razor-sharp, retractable nails. This allows for the cats to extend and retract their claws when attacking prey or running. It also assists in hold down and grasping prey. The stripes on the Amur tiger can be gray, grayish-brown, brown, or black. These stripes act as camouflage for the enormous cats because they can be mistaken as shadows by their prey. Every cat has a different pattern to their stripes. The fur around the face of the tiger is always longer than the rest of the body.
With the exception of mating season or a mother traveling with her cubs, Amur tigers are solitary animals. Tigers communicate in several ways. Scent, sound, visual markings, spraying and scratching trees, and digging piles of soil and leaves are all forms of communication tigers will use. When tigers meet other tigers their behavior is unpredictable. It is possible that they will share a meal, fight, or greet each other and be on their way. Amur tigers are unable to run fast for long distances, forcing them to have to stalk their prey before attacking. When it comes to killing their prey felids are successful, but catching is another story. They fail to catch their targets more times than they succeed. The Amur tiger is an excellent swimmer. They tend to cool off in the water to escape the heat. They also lay in tall grass, caves and swampy areas to keep cool. They will vocalize for several different reasons. Often they will roar when they are disturbed or a kill was successful, and moan if they have failed. They also grunt and make puffing sounds through the nostrils.
During mating season a male and female may hang around each other playing and mating for a few days up to a couple of weeks. The Gestation period of a tiger is 92 to 113 days and typically two to four cubs will be born. When they are born the cubs are blind and normally open their eyes in approximately 14 days. Cubs have a high mortality rate.
During the zoo observations at Potawatomi Zoo the Amur tiger was lazing around. He was spread out up by the glass lying on his side. I observed him for 25 minutes and the entire time he did not move, with the exception of occasionally swatting at his face to remove the fly's swarming around him. I had walked around the zoo and when I returned he had moved from the glass to the back part of the exhibit by the rock and laid down. When he was near the glass I was able to compare his massive size to myself. Amur tigers are enormous. He was massive in size and had orange fur with black stripes on his body. His belly and the underneath part of his body was a cream color. He never made a sound but he lifted his head up and looked around for about five seconds before lying it back down. The exhibit was caged by glass, which had paw prints all over it. It seemed to be very marshy with rocks throughout. There were vines growing down the side of the rocky walls and a small pond off to the side. There was a red ball in the tiger's exhibit for enrichment purposes.
