The picture to the right shows a view I had from Changbaishan mountain ('shan' means mountain in Chinese) overlooking the forest where there are a few Amur Tigers roaming.
I've also hiked through the forest and visited some places where ecologists were studying the community of trees in the forest. The forest inhabited by the Amur Tiger is temperate deciduous forest.
Questions from Ms. Brown's students:
Q: How far do you have to travel to get to your destination? (Lauren D. Per. 8)
How are you going to get to Asia? (Andy W. Per. 8, Ford B. Per. 6)
A: I had 3 flights to get from my family's home in Pittsburgh, PA, to Xishuangbanna, China. From Pittsburgh to Washington, DC was 190 miles (306 km). From Washington, DC to Beijing, China was 6,940 miles (11,170 km). From Beijing to Xishuangbanna was about 650 miles (1000 km). This means a total of 7,780 miles (12,476 km)!
Q: What city are you going to? (Mamie F. Per. 8)
A: After visiting Xishuangbanna, I visited Beijing for my program orientation. I will now spend the rest of my time doing research in Menglun, a small town in Xishuangbanna, in southwest China.
Q: Don't the white tigers have black stripes too? (Melissa L. Per. 1)
A: Yes you are right, the white tigers have a rare recessive gene making them white with black stripes.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/white%20tiger/brittony_wood/white%20tigers/White_Tigers.jpg
Q: Were there tigers in BC times, what did they look like? (Shane R. Per. 1)
A: Yes, the oldest tiger fossils are about 2 million years old. I do not know if they looked much different than modern tigers, I have not been able to find this out.
Q: How many tigers are in the world? (Andrew M., Per. 6)
A: The World Wildlife Fund estimates that there are only about 3,200 tigers left, down from about 100,000 a century ago.
Q: Why did the tiger population decrease? (Adrian L., & Angelica C., Per. 6)
How did it become extinct so fast? (Averyl C., Per. 6)
A: Tigers have been disappearing due to a combination of causes. Most importantly, tigers are hunted illegally because people in China believe their body parts have medicinal powers. Also, tiger prey like deer are over-hunted, and tiger habitat is being destroyed to build farms and towns.
Q: How big are the tigers?
A: In Changbaishan in nothern China and in bordering Russia, Amur Tiger males can get up to 660 lbs. and 10.9 feet long, while females get to 370 lbs and 8.5 feet long. In Xishuangbanna, where I am now, Indochinese tiger males get up to 400 lbs. and 9 feet long, while females get to 250 lbs. and 8 feet long.
Q: How long do Indochinese tigers live? (Donaji D., Per. 6)
A: 26 years.
Q: What is the difference between a tigon and a liger? Why are tigons smaller? (Zachary G., Samuel J., per. 4)
How come people mix together a tiger and a lion? (Jonathan M., Per. 4)
A: Tigons are the result of a male tiger and a female lion mating. Ligers are the result of a male lion and a female tiger mating. I really don't know why people decided to mate them together.
There is a very interesting hypothesis for why Tigons are smaller than Ligers. Tigers typically are monogamous, meaning a male and female tiger mate with each other and not any other tigers. However, lions are polygamous, and often mate with several lions. So if a male tiger mates with a female tiger, there is a good chance that her babies will all be his. However, if a male lion mates with a female lion, some of her babies may be from other males. So it will benefit a male lion if his babies grow bigger inside of the mom, and have bigger placentas, because then they will take resources away from other babies from other males. So scientists think that male lions have genomes that cause their babies to suck up lots of energy from their moms. But lion moms have fought back against this, and they have genomes that prevent the babies from taking up too much of their energy. These male vs. female genomes balance out to create babies of average lion size.
However, when you cross a female tiger with a male lion, the male lion has a genome that sucks up extra energy from mom, while female tigers have not evolved a genome to fight back (remember the babies of male tigers do not try to suck up extra energy). So the male lion genome takes extra energy from the mom tiger, and the baby is huge! Ligers are the biggest cats in the world!
http://www.wildlifetourism.net/gifs/liger5.jpg
When you cross a male tiger with a female lion, the female lion has a genome that gives less energy to its babies (which fights against the male genome), but the male tiger has not evolved a genome that demands extra energy from mom. As a result, the female lion gives little energy to the baby, and tigons are smaller than tigers and lions.
