No two alike
Every tiger's stripes are different, like fingerprints. Even its skin is striped under the fur.
Asian jungle
Bengal tiger
Panthera tigris
The biggest of the cats: orange with black stripes, a white belly and a long ringed tail.
- Size
- Up to 3m long with the tail: the biggest cat
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Forests and grasslands of India, and scattered across Asia
Pads after you, and bounds when you get ahead. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Tiger
Good to know
Six things about the tiger
A cat that likes water
Tigers are strong swimmers and lie in pools to keep cool.
A roar that carries
A tiger's roar can be heard nearly two miles away.
A patient hunter
It creeps close, then rushes. Even so, most hunts fail: perhaps one in ten or twenty succeeds.
False eyes
The white spot on the back of each ear may help cubs to follow their mother through long grass.
A life alone
Apart from mothers with cubs, tigers live and hunt alone, each in its own large territory.
The real thing
Photos of the tiger
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
In India's tiger reserves, guides listen for the alarm calls of deer and monkeys, which give a walking tiger away.
How to help
There are only about 5,000 wild tigers, though numbers in India are rising. Support groups that protect forests and work with the villages round them.
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