Talk:Caspian tiger

Clean up

Added to the cleanup list. 68.81.164.226 04:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this article is written by a foreign speaker, likely Russian (or Possibly German based on the writer's usage of English, and mostly needs work on standardizing the language. We would do better to encourage people who are not native English speakers to add articles on their fields of expertise and interest and fix them to encourage content. I worked on it a little bit and the article reads better now and has more links. NKB 2/16/06

Is it just me or is this a little difficult to read, lots of short sentences rather than paragraphs flowing nicely...I don't intend on changing it just wondering if anyone agreed. Is not a bad article anyway :) --Cory 14:03, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

agreed...i noticed several choppy sentences & a couple run-ons. could definitely be edited to flow better. i'm no english professor, so i'll leave that to someone else. also - one discrepancy which bugs me a bit:

'This sub species of tigers, the smallest in size became extinct...'

and

'The Caspian tiger was the second largest tiger...'

i suppose the first reference is to population size, while the second is to physical characteristics…but i’d like to have that verified.

~~ ajp100688

The Habits section (now renamed Habits/Mating) has been tidied up, the choppy sentences have been merged and tweaked so they now run more fluidly into each other and it's much less stop-start.

As for the size conflict, that I am not sure of, from the picture shown the Tiger does not appear to be a great size in contrast to the Siberian breed. I'd be more likely to think the initial comment refered to it's physical size, and the second largest comment was about it's range especially when taking this into account:

"The Caspian tiger, Panthera tigris virgata, has become extinct in the past 50 years. It once ranged throughout the humid forests and grasslands of afghanistan, iran, mongolia, Turkey and the central Asiatic areas of Russia." - --User:ajp100688 14:05, 18 June 2005

Politics - Neutrality

• I just added the Neutrality tag because of the statement that the extinction was caused by politicians; presumably they didn' talk it to death but maybe they authorised the actions that lead to its extinction by other people. It need clarification.

ping 08:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Echad 05:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC) Men, are you really into this? I mean, "neutrality of a TIGER article?" What next, an organization against anti-Tigrism? People, don't be so childish, this is (supposed to be) serious recource!

I removed the Neutrality tag, because when you read the whole article or even one sentence further, you read an explanation. I quote: "At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian government worked heavily to eradicate the Caspian tiger during an extensive land reclamation program. There was no room for the tiger in their plans, and government officials instructed the Russian army to exterminate all tigers found around the area of the Caspian Sea, a project that was carried out very efficiently. Once the extermination of the Caspian tiger was almost complete, farmers cleared forests and planting crops such as rice and cotton. Due to intensive hunting and deforestation, the Caspian tiger retreated first from the lush lowlands to the forested ranges, then to the marshes around some of the larger rivers, and finally, deeper into the mountains, until it almost certainly became extinct." Sites that have also information on this are: [1] and [2]. Pmaas 08:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the disputed text, because it is also discussed in the chapter History and extinction. See quote in previous post. Pmaas 08:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Whay turan tiger is acceptable .while never been an area in the world called turan.exept epuc of booj of ferdowsi.as an imaginary land.and turan tuger never been mentioned in any book .while persia or iran was the main country of these tigers .more than 90 of these tigers lived in iran south of caspian sea . Bahmanrajabiun (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Plagiarism!

I would just like to point out that the above text that you quote comes directly from the resource website Copy-and-Paste. (Someone copied the article at http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/caspian.html and pasted it into the article.) If this is not the case, if the website is copying the wiki article, then why would the website be listed as a reference? Unless the wiki editor who copied the information is the same person who authored the referenced website, that is plagiarism. Tsarevna (talk) 18:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I had to remove three sentences that were copy-pasted from one of the PubMed articles. I don't know how much more of this article was plagiarized, but this needs to be investigated and cleaned up. 209.162.56.112 (talk) 18:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

References- where are they?

Its a bit crazy that this page has so much information and yet only ONE reference- I've added a "more sources needed" tag in light of this, hopefully it will facilitate some remedial action in this area. At present this article is almost worthless in terms of verifiability because its so poorly referenced. Kotare 09:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a question about the content: there is a stuffed Caspian Tiger in the museum at Nukus, Uzbekistan, which was allegedly killed in 1972. This isn't mentioned and casts doubt on most of the points made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavinevans (talk • contribs) 23:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Extinction

"Extinct in the wild"

• For some reason a bunch of editors are trying to make it seem like the animal still exists. It doesn't, so please quit it. Funkynusayri (talk) 20:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The clMes of tigers in iraq .turkey Afghanistan is a myth not recorded any where .theclast tigers in the wild recorded in iran only. Bahmanrajabiun (talk) 22:32, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Rubbish, we have literature and photographs on the Caspian tiger having been in both Iran and other places. Heptner and Sludskii (1972) have [photographs] of skins of tigers from Central Asia.

References

Leo1pard (talk) 13:43, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Sightings and doubts about extinction

The information in this section of the article is not (yet) referenced. Therefore, I place the following paragraphs here for the time being. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 10:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

==== Reported sightings ====

There are still occasional claims of the Caspian tiger being sighted, with some occurring in Afghanistan, pug marks [tiger paw prints] have occasionally been reported, and others coming from the more remote forested areas of Turkmenistan. However, experts have been unable to find any solid evidence to substantiate these claims and the last reliable sighting was probably at least 30 years ago. It has also been suggested that the 'tiger' sightings may actually be Persian Leopards. Any hope of Caspian tigers in Afghanistan could be further dashed as war continues to rage across areas of the country.

Without photographic evidence, expert assessment of pug marks, attacks on animals or people, or a sighting by an expert authority, there is presently no good reason to believe that the Caspian Tiger still lives. Nonetheless, complete resolution of the matter will probably not be achieved until some time in the late first decade of the 21st century, given the need to investigate the Turkish reports.

Isn't the last sentence of the first paragraph redundant, and therefore unnecessary?

The first opening sentence describes the subspecies as being extinct. The last sentence in the opening paragraph is currently "There are no individuals in captivity". Isn't this stating the obvious, considering it has already been established in the first sentence that the subspecies is extinct? I propose to remove that sentence if there are no objections. Comments? Garth of the Forest (talk) 19:51, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it would seem so, wouldn't it? However, the source (IUCN Red List) cites the same source (Nowell and Jackson 1996) twice, for both the "it's extinct" and "there are none in captivity" statements. So the article is confusing because the source is confusing. I'd remove the "captivity" sentence since the article sounds idiotic as it is now. --Seduisant (talk) 20:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Caspian tiger versus Siberian tiger

Should be merged with Siberian tiger

In light of new discoveries, this article should be merged with the Siberian tiger article.Mariomassone (talk) 13:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

• I agree, but Wikipedia does have other articles about specific notable populations of animals that are not distinct subspecies, such as the Gibraltar Barbary Macaques. FunkMonk (talk) 09:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
• I disagree. There is plenty of information here for a separate article on this population. A notable population should have its own article even if it isn't a distinct subspecies. Calathan (talk) 18:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• I disagree aswell. Even if you redirected it, it makes more sense for people to read about the Caspian Tiger, because although it is the same as a Siberian Tiger, it has a different history. People will want to read about the Caspian Tiger, whether it technecally ever really existed in the first place. Knurla (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
• I disagree for the same reasons cited by Calathan. Kpstewart (talk) 04:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think a call for the elimination of page for the Caspian Lion is premature and comes before a scientific consensus has formed. Not even the author's of the Plos One report have voiced their opinions with absolute certainty. They use terms such as "plausible origination scenario" to demonstrate that they are only proposing a theory. Therefore, it would be far too soon for wikipedia to erase the Caspian tiger from annals of scientific knowledge. But even if a consensus is reached that the Caspian tiger is not a subspecies, I think it would make sense to retain this article. For a century there has been a body of scientific literature produced on the Caspian tiger and the concept of this species existed within the realm of scientific knowledge. There was even a conservation effort in place for the species. One way to retain this article while acknowledging that the Caspian is not a subspecies is to begin the article with "The Caspian tiger is an extinct population of tigers that was considered a tiger sub-species but is now recognized as part of the Amur tiger population." This along with other changes in the tense of the text would, in my opinion, be sufficient to retain this article while acknowledging the most recent scientific findings.David Straub (talk) 07:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Where is the scientific consensus that this animal should be re-classified as P. t. altaica? There needs to be more than one article saying this. I read just one, suggesting a possible merger and outright saying the case needs more evidence from nuclear DNA first. They may well end up merged, but this has not happened yet that I can see. And if they were merged P. t. virgata would be the senior name anyway.209.162.56.112 (talk) 18:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Correct subspecies name Siberian tiger vs. Caspian tiger

This is my first contribution to the world of Wikipedia so please bear with me, and in light of much of what I have read on the Wiki-Tiger discussion page alone: Please be polite to me, assume my good faith, avoid attacking me personally, and be welcoming.

I am concerned with this general article on tigers and with the articles on the Siberian/Amur tiger (P. t. altaica) and Caspian Tiger (P. t. virgata). Quoting a source that I found cited on this very page (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004125), recent research involving mitochondrial molecular genetics seems to be uncovering possible historic errors made in taxonomic subspecies definitions:

quote - In the era before molecular taxonomy tiger subspecies definitions were based on classical criteria: geographical origin, gross size and pelage variation (hair length, color, stripe number and patterning) (Figure 1). Subspecies so described were often spurious as they were sometimes based on a single, possibly aberrant, individual, or from the unknowing sampling of clinal variation. Such methods led to a lack of consensus, repeated taxonomic revision, and debate. Though debate continues, eight tiger subspecies (three of which are extinct) are widely recognized based on these criteria. However the phylogeny of the five extant recognized tiger taxa (P. t. tigris, P. t. altaica, P. t. amoyensis, P. t. sumatrae, P. t. corbetti) was revisited recently using mitochondrial molecular genetics by Luo et al. who affirmed the validity of subspecies ranking for these groups. Additionally, these authors identified an equivalent sub-specific taxon unique to the Malay peninsula south of the Isthmus of Kra, formerly classified within P. t. corbetti but now designated as the Malay tiger, P. t. jacksoni.

The article goes on to describe how these new research results seem to indicate that that the Siberian subspecies is genetically so close to the Caspian subspecies as for them to be considered one and the same:

quote - The Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) flourished in Central Asian riverine forest systems in a range disjunct from that of other tigers, but was driven to extinction in 1970 prior to a modern molecular evaluation. For over a century naturalists puzzled over the taxonomic validity, placement, and biogeographic origin of this enigmatic animal. Using ancient-DNA (aDNA) methodology, we generated composite mtDNA haplotypes from twenty wild Caspian tigers from throughout their historic range sampled from museum collections. We found that Caspian tigers carry a major mtDNA haplotype differing by only a single nucleotide from the monomorphic haplotype found across all contemporary Amur tigers (P. t. altaica). Phylogeographic analysis with extant tiger subspecies suggests that less than 10,000 years ago the Caspian/Amur tiger ancestor colonized Central Asia via the Gansu Corridor (Silk Road) from eastern China then subsequently traversed Siberia eastward to establish the Amur tiger in the Russian Far East. The conservation implications of these findings are far reaching, as the observed genetic depletion characteristic of modern Amur tigers likely reflects these founder migrations and therefore predates human influence. Also, due to their evolutionary propinquity, living Amur tigers offer an appropriate genetic source should reintroductions to the former range of the Caspian tiger be implemented.

The article concludes that in light of this new information there was a historical mistake in designating a new subspecies for the extant population found in far eastern Russia; in fact there never was a Siberian tiger subspecies.

quote - Interruption of potential historical gene flow across the ancestral Eurasian distribution of P. t. altaica+P. t. virgata may have been too recent (<200 years) to accumulate sub-species level genetic differentiation and a single mtDNA transition may not sufficiently establish the differentiation required to assign each population to separate taxonomic categories. Depending on further study of nuclear genes and morphology, and in view of previous equivocal or conflicting morphological assessments, Caspian and Amur tigers (P. t. virgata, Illiger,1815 and P. t. altaica, Temminck, 1844, respectively) might be considered as synonymous under the prior P. t. virgata trinomial as prescribed by the rules of the ICZN, in which case pronouncing the Caspian tiger extinct may have been premature.

I would be most certainly in favor of keeping the Siberian Tiger subspecies page as many people will be looking to find a "Siberian tiger" page for years to come, but facts are facts; the Caspian tiger is still alive in far eastern Russia and the Siberian tiger subspecies never existed. I rely on Wikipedia daily for information, and I expect it to be accurate. But I have to say that certainly somebody with more Wiki experience than me has to undertake this project, and based on what I have read on the Wiki-Tiger discussion page it needs to be someone with Wiki-clout.

In postscript: I apologize for the excessive long entry, and my probable inability to format my entry properly (Altalaya (talk) 21:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)).

Comment on the Wiki talk page - "Tiger" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Altalaya (talk • contribs) 02:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments are welcome on impending changes to the Caspian, Siberian, and Tiger pages. Please direct comments to the Tiger discussion page (Altalaya (talk) 01:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)).

Well, the scientific name might change to P. tigris virgata for both, since this name is oldest, but I doubt anyone will begin using "Caspian" as a common name for the Siberian tigers. FunkMonk (talk) 17:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Can I treat P. t. altaica as a synonym for P. t. virgata, nevertheless?

The page Masai lion mentions that it has 2 trinomial names: P. l. massaica and P. l. nubica, and that of Cape lion says that the 'black-maned' Cape lion could be considered as a population of the Transvaal lion, due to their close relationship, even though the latter 2 articles have been kept separate. Leo1pard (talk) 17:39, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Re-population of Caspian Tiger Range with closely related Siberian / Amur Tiger in exchange for Asiatic Cheetah

Iranian and Russian ecologists are planning a joint project designed to return to the wild the Caspian Tigers as well as Asiatic Cheetahs in the Central Asian region. These big cats had disappeared, the Asiatic Cheetah from Russia and Caspian Tiger from Iran, some half a century ago. Latest genetic studies have shown that the Russian or Amur Tiger is related and virtually identical to the extinct Caspian Tigers and hence will be used to repopulated the Caspian Tiger range in exchange for Asiatic Cheetahs.

RELATED NEWS (for the archival purposes)

Iran, Russia Hope to Revive Extinct Big Cats Asiatiac Cheetah and Caspian Tiger

01/09/2010; Source: Press TV; Payvand Iran News

Iranian and Russian ecologists have announced ambitious plans to return Caspian Tigers as well as Asiatic cheetahs, which disappeared some half a century ago in their countries, to the wild.

PHOTO: Asiatic cheetah

A delegation of Russian ecologists headed by Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation Sergey Donskoy arrived in Tehran a week ago to discuss avenues to reestablish the wild cats.

During the meeting, the Iranian ecologists shed light on the prospect of repopulating the jungles in northern Iran with extraordinary Caspian Tiger, which became extinct over 40 years ago.

This is while through modern genetic analysis it has been discovered the Caspian Tiger and the Siberian Tiger, still in existence, are separated by only one letter of genetic code. The Caspian Tiger can be reestablished by using their relative, the Siberian Tiger.

Russian and international conservation groups banned hunting of tiger in 1947, but it was too late for the Caspian Tiger to make a recovery. Poaching and contributing factors wiped out the majestic cat. Conservation efforts, however, did help to protect and stabilize the Siberian Tiger. Fortunately, the subspecies commingling in the distant past will allow the Caspian Tiger to once again take its rightful place in the family tree of tigers.

PHOTO: Caspian Tiger

The Russian ecologist asked for Iranian assistance in revival of Asiatic cheetahs in the northern Caucasus region.

Described as powerful and graceful hunters, cheetahs are the world's fastest animal and easy to train. Cheetahs were trained by ancient Persian kings, who used them to hunt gazelles.

Recognizing the cats' precarious situation, Iran's Department of Environment has worked with the UN Development Program-Global Environment Facility and Wildlife Conservation Society in New York since 2001 to save the only 50 to 60 Asiatic cheetahs which live in the Dasht-e Kavir region of Iran.

Payvand News - 01/09/10

SOURCE: http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jan/1082.html

mrigthrishna (talk) 12:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Caspian tiger versus lion

Issues with page

A user named Leo1pard has posted a lot of false and unnecessary on this page, yet attempts to remove it were met with simply restoring said information. The most obvious being their false claim that lions are the same size as the largest tiger species, which goes against common knowledge and facts. They also add hybrids such as ligers, which is unnecessary and is mentioned on the liger article. They also claim that the Caspian tiger is merely "believed" to be extinct rather than officially extinct. And finally they link to the Tiger vs Lion page, which, given their other edits and comments, suggest their true motivation for these edits. Can someone please fix this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.173.175 (talk) 16:56, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

No, I did not merely say that lions and tigers are the same size, but that the Siberian, Caspian and Bengal tigers were the largest felidae apart from lions and hybrids like ligers, because ligers can be bigger than Siberian tigers in size, and there are references of lions exceeding 249.5 kg (550 lb) in weight, which would make them rival Bengal tigers, which today reportedly weigh 180–258 kg (397–569 pounds) in the wild, and Caspian tigers, which apparently weighed 170–240 kg (370–530 pounds) in the wild, at least, and I mentioned those references, but you also have to be careful of bias, because to mention Siberian, Caspian and Bengal tigers as being the biggest cats, quoting one reference, and excluding other references, constitutes bias, and it's like you did not take time to carefully read the references which I provided to talk about huge lions. Leo1pard (talk) 04:55, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

It is, however, worth mentioning that I had provided some other references which User BhagyaMani deleted in this article. Leo1pard (talk) 05:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

If I was that biased to the lion, then I would not respect what I would see as referenced information about say, tigers exceeding 249.5 kg (550 lb), or a Bengal tiger defeating a Barbary lion, let alone adding more details to that story. Plus, sightings of Caspian tigers are reported from time to time, and a recent one that I mentioned was apparently in 1997! Leo1pard (talk) 07:26, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I edited the information, to more accurately say what is in the references. Leo1pard (talk) 14:44, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

This is to say that information represented in a way that it would look like original research has been edited, so that there is no OR in it, but at the same time, multiple references have been used to eliminate bias, instead of one reference by Mazák, who did not seem to know about lions weighing 225–249.5 kg (496–550 lb) or more, or about hybrids like ligers, which can outweigh tigers. Leo1pard (talk) 14:44, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I now understand that lions could rival even Bengal, Caspian and Siberian tigers in weight, depending on the population or subspecies. What knowledge or understanding I had about lions and tigers 2 years ago is little compared to what I have now. Leo1pard (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Caspian tiger versus Asiatic lion

Original distribution of the Caspian tiger in dark grey, more or less

Past and present distributions of the lion in Africa and Eurasia, more or less

A Caspian tiger killed in northern Iran, early 1940's

Men with a restrained lion (likely a young one or lioness) in Iran. Photograph by Antoin Sevruguin (1830's – 1933). The Persian lion used to occur in the northern part of the country, in the distant past.

How many people noticed that the Bengal tiger was not the only population, if not subspecies of Panthera tigris, that coexisted with the Asiatic lion, considering that the latter was recorded in places where the Caspian tiger had been, such as northern Iran and Khaurism?

References

Leo1pard (talk) 13:43, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Sources on the evolutionary history of the Caspian tiger

I noticed that there is a moderate level of detail on the origin and distribution of the Caspian tiger, however there is room to expand on its expansion and range, especially before the 20th Century. This is especially due as the Caspian Tiger ranged north of the Black Sea (into Eastern Europe) as late as the Middle Ages, as per some of the sources below. As I have perpetual exams at the moment, I am going to leave these sources here to substantiate this article in the future, as this is an important element of the Caspian tiger's evolutionary history. I would be very grateful if anyone with the time could integrate relevant information/discussion from the sources below.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227785806_Biogeographical_change_in_the_tiger_Panthera_tigris

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.12484/full

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400175.full

http://www.audubon.org/news/the-last-wild-tigers

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2624500/#pone.0004125-Kitchener1

Search on google the following WWF documents-

(Turanian Tiger- Analysis of Modern Situation PDF) +

(Pre-Feasibility Study on the Possible Restoration of the Caspian Tiger PDF)

SuperTah (talk) 03:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. Leo1pard (talk) 14:53, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

@SuperTah: [This map] by Wilting et al. (2015) does depict the Caspian tiger as having occurred in North Caucasus which is in European Russia, and Heptner and Sludskii (1972) did talk about it being in Europe. In particular, they believed that the lyuti zver (Old Russian for "fierce animal") which non-fatally attacked Vladimir II Monomakh, Velikiy Kniaz of Kievan Rus', was a tiger. The zver was said to have sprung at the Prince and his horse, which reminds me of the way that this Bengal tiger attacked a mahout on his elephant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4t0aeTX954

References

Leo1pard (talk) 13:56, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Reference: Masseti 2009

There is some inconsistency in Masseti (2009)'s article about carnivores in Syria: he claims tiger records in the Turkish Hatay Province with reference to Baytop (1974) and Kock (1990). But Kock (1990) did not mention ANY record in that province, and Baytop (1974) accounted of a skin obtained in Hakkari Province, which is much farther east. Also Masseti (2009) claims "archaeological evidence for the occurrence of tigers in the Amuq valley" with reference to Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951), whereas these authors did not mention such evidence. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 12:34, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It was also stated "This paper is almost entirely the result of a series of field surveys carried out by the author mainly between 1989 and 1995, integrated by data from several subsequent reports and sightings by other authors," that might help to explain that, especially as Masseti himself, in 2000, said that Baytop (1974) obtained a tiger's skin near Uludere in Hakkari Province, for example. Leo1pard (talk) 16:48, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Alleged distribution

Firstly, Mount Ararat and Hakkari Province are in the Eastern Anatolia Region, so this cannot be the westernmost distribution in Anatolia or Turkey. Secondly, Kirk (2002) said "Asia Minor or Anatolia (today's Turkey) is a natural bridge connecting Europe and Asia (Figure 1). This region was historically home to a diverse group of carnivores such as the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata), the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) gray wolf (Canis lupus), striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), brown bear (Ursus arctos), Anatolian leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), caracal (Felis caracal), Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra), golden jackal (Canis aureus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), European wildcat (Felis silvestris caucasica), pine marten (Martes martes) and other smaller mustelid species (BPPC and EEII 2002). During the nine-teenth and twentieth centuries, some of these species were completely extirpated from the region or became rare due to indiscriminate hunting and habitat destruction. Anatolia's last Asiatic lion was reportedly shot in the Birecek forestlands of eastern Turkey (Turkiye Avcilari 2002; Yesil Atlas 2002). One of the last pairs of Caspian tigers is recorded as having been killed in 1943 on the Selcuk Plain in southwestern Turkey (Duygu 2002). Although there are still unconfirmed sightings and signs of the sub-species in eastern Turkey, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan (Lairweb 2002), unsubstantiated reports indicate Anatolia's last tiger was killed near Uludere, in southeastern Turkey's Hakkari Province in 1970," and I even referenced Duygu (2002) when talking about Selçuk Plain, so why was this changed? Leo1pard (talk) 18:42, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Mount Ararat and Hakkari Province are in the very east of Turkey. And when you had a look at the map in Nowell and Jackson (1996), you'd see that this is the westernmost area in Turkey where tigers occurred. This means: there is NO record farther WEST in Turkey. A Turkish biologist Can (2004), having worked with WWF-Turkey, corroborated this assessment.

But, who said that the map of Nowell and Jackson has to be perfect, and that Duygu and Kirk have to be wrong? Considering that the report, about the last western Anatolian tigers being killed Selçuk Plain, dates back to 1943, which is during the Second World War, long before Can (2004) worked with WWF-Turkey on tigers, how would Can et al. have found any tigers in the western area, to know whether or not tigers did occur in that area, even if he did go there? In addition, assessments can be faulty, like Can himself said, as international zoologists did not accept the idea that the Caspian tiger was present in Turkey, when it was declared extinct in the World, and it appears to me that Can did research on tigers in the eastern region, not the western region, so just because he and his colleagues didn't know about tigers in the western region, that does not mean that Kirk and Duygu were wrong that the tiger did occur in the western region, such as in Selçuk Plain. Leo1pard (talk) 06:52, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

And who said that Duygu's claim (btw: in a newspaper article) that Johnson refers to, is correct? Did Dugyu see this tiger pair in 1934? Or did he see 68-year old tiger skins in that area? The phenomenon with any skin is that it can travel looong distances in suit cases. Note that Johnson references 'Lairweb', a website with quite some doubtful information. --BhagyaMani (talk) 09:00, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I did not use Lairweb in this, and the reference given for the 1943 incident, by Kirk (2002), is "Duygu, Ibrahim. 2002. Izmir Daglarin'da kaplanlar cirit atardi. March 3, Yeni Asir." And besides, where could Duygu get such details from, like that it was a pair killed in Selçuk Plain in 1943, if it is false? Researchers as humans, are not bound to be perfect, for example, Heptner and Sludskii (1972) did not mention the tiger's presence in Iraq, but does that mean that the other guys are wrong to claim that it did? Unless you do proper research in a particular area, how do you expect to know if something occurred there or not? At best, these guys, like Nowell and Jackson, mapped out places where they were sure of the tiger's presence, it's not like they would know exactly where the tiger did not occur, it depends on what information they could get, like Heptner and Sludskii did not mention the tiger's presence in Iraq, likely because they didn't get information regarding it. Apart from that, one should not keep trashing newspapers, otherwise, is it going to be the case that if someone posts a whole bunch of newspapers about, say, Asiatic cheetahs occurring in Khar Turan National Park, to make a point, and we did talk about that, you would reverse that edit, calling all those Iranian newspapers as unreliable? Leo1pard (talk) 09:29, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Nowhere did I write that YOU referenced Lairweb! But only that Johnson did. Yeni Asir is a Turkish daily newspaper. So my question again: Did Dugyu see this tiger pair in 1934? Or did he see 68-year old tiger skins in that area? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:52, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Whether you like it or not, this is an article that has been accepted as being reliable by a number of people, like researchers of Elsevier. You earlier talked about using peer-reviewed articles as references, so here you go, and if you want to be that critical of sources, then I suggest that you go and check details in other articles, or books, which were termed reliable as well, for yourself, such as whether or not Indochinese tigers migrate from Myanmar to Northeast India, as implied by these guys. Leo1pard (talk) 13:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I did NOT doubt the reliability of any of these publications listed above, (and btw: added some of these myself). I just asked a simple question that you keep on evading: Did Dugyu see this tiger pair in 1934? Or did he see 68-year old tiger skins in that area? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:19, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

It looks as if Duygu got a hunting record, just as you and I do not see the Caspian tiger, but we have records of it having been hunted, especially because of what the title "Izmir Daglarin'da kaplanlar cirit atardi" means. Leo1pard (talk) 15:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That's what i call an ambiguous answer: .. as if .. And what is 'a hunting record' supposed to mean ? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:09, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean that I should actually go to İzmir or Selçuk Plain, to investigate myself, similar to what I suggested about going to the border-region between India and Myanmar, to authenticate the reports of Indochinese tigers migrating from Myanmar to India or back, in case you are suspicious of those reports? A hunting record, as in, something like this. Leo1pard (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I certainly did not mean that!! Reasons for my being suspicious about such alleged records are: a) as mentioned above, skins can travel long distances in suit cases, i.e. location of a skin found is not necessarily location of animal killed; b) Can (2004) noted that there was a trade of tiger skins going on in Turkey long before officials learned about it; c) if the source had been a record published by a zoologist like Can and/or colleagues, this would have added credibility to this particular find, but journalists and newspaper reporters are usually not versed in identifying wildlife correctly; I know of several misidentifications of one cat species for another by newspeople. --BhagyaMani (talk) 18:40, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

But what about the fact that Kirk's work is not a mere newspaper, but a well-accepted article, and considering that photographs pertaining to such records, which we may not see everyday, can exist, like this one? Leo1pard (talk) 04:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Where is this article well-accepted? I just checked Jungius (2009) who did not reference Kirk's article, but wrote about range having "extended from eastern Turkey to .." eastwards. Can (2004) did neither reference Kirk's article, nor this newspaper article. At the time, i.e. beginning of 2000s, Can and colleagues conducted a country-wide assessment of large carnivore status in the country. And no other publication about cat species in Turkey published in recent years (that I know of) referred to a Kirk/Johnson. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 10:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

These guys from Elsevier referenced Kirk's work. Leo1pard (talk) 13:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

References

Leo1pard (talk) 18:42, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

caspuan tiger or persian iranian tiger

While cadpuan tiger mistly exusted iran .about mire than 90 percent if these tigers.and u doubt its even exusted in turkey or iraq ever .whay name if iran is not mentioned in the introduction part.and turkey can be seen in evert text of thus topic ? I guess thus text us anti iranian and fraud of real origin of thus exunct animal. Bahmanrajabiun (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

If this was "anti-Iranian", why would Iran be shown in the map? Anyhow, if you want to add text, don't write in all-capitals. Make it look like the rest of the article. FunkMonk (talk) 20:41, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Iran was shiwn in the map .but the text more taljs about tigers in turkey.iraq caucasia.while most if the tigers were in iran south if caspuan sea .and name virgata comes from varkan old persian name for maxandaran and golestan and gilan provinces of iran exclusively. as welk as hirkan which us greek form of persian varkan. Bahmanrajabiun (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Etymology regarding the tiger subspecies, according to the view of the IUCN

Apart from the controversy over whether or not the IUCN's view is actually valid, I know that the IUCN proposed that tigers be grouped into P. t. tigris and P. t. sondaica, but does that mean that we should say that the IUCN is saying that the Caspian tiger is a population of the "Bengal tiger subspecies," which is commonly understood to mean tigers in South Asia, instead of the "Asian Mainland tiger subspecies"? Leo1pard (talk) 04:07, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Your question is ambiguous. Is it possible that you misunderstood the meaning of etymology? Or is your question about taxonomy? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:43, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

It is about taxonomy. The phrase "Bengal tiger" is used to mean tigers in South Asia, not the other tigers of the Asian mainland, it is the taxonomic name, Panthera tigris tigris, that the IUCN proposed classifying the other Asian mainland tigers into, and likewise what I mentioned for the regular and taxonomic names for the Cape lion and Javan tiger. Leo1pard (talk) 09:12, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

And by the way, the URL for this reference from the IUCN is dead, and what the IUCN said in this functional one, regarding their re-classification of lions, is "the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group has provisionally proposed a different split into two subspecies, P. l. leo of Asia and West, Central and North Africa, and P l. melanochaita from South and East Africa. However, Barnett et al. (2014) is based only on mtDNA and could reflect female philopatry," so the 'update' from the IUCN that we put into these articles about different lions and tigers could be in trouble, unless we take care to mention that this was said by the IUCN. Leo1pard (talk) 09:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I put that information regarding the lion, to give you an idea about why the IUCN's reclassification of subspecies can be controversial. Leo1pard (talk) 09:36, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

The members of the Cat Classification Taskforce (CCT) decided that from a taxonomic point of view the tiger populations in mainland Asia are not sufficiently distinct to warrant that many different trinomen. Hence the oldest subspecific names are used. See download link that is not difficult to find : --BhagyaMani (talk) 09:56, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Which other group of people or organisation do YOU consider more appropriate to discuss and revise taxonomic questions? Am pretty sure that your personal opinion and conclusions about taxonomic questions are not relevant for the CCT's decisions.-- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:56, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Not necessarily 'more' appropriate, but remember, the IUCN's reclassification of tigers has been the subject of a dispute, and I do see one for lions, and we in Wikipedia are supposed to take a WP:Neutral POV, in the case of such disputes. Leo1pard (talk) 11:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Here are references to give you an idea about what I mean. Leo1pard (talk) 12:25, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

See my replies in Talk:Cape lion#Etymology of the lion subspecies, according to the view of the IUCN and Talk:Bali tiger. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 12:57, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I did see them, but is not as simple as an editor like myself wanting to question their expertise: Do you remember what the case was for the Ethiopian lion? Leo1pard (talk) 13:22, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

My reply does not need repetition and is in Talk:Cape lion#Ethiopian lion. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Ditto. Leo1pard (talk) 16:24, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

References

Leo1pard (talk) 09:30, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Page views

Leo1pard (talk) 07:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Bergmann's rule for felidae

See this. Leo1pard (talk) 07:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

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Did Caspian tigers prey on brown bears?

See this. Leo1pard (talk) 07:50, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Dispute on tiger taxonomy

See this. Leo1pard (talk) 05:44, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Phylogenetic relationship of tiger populations based on Driscoll et al. (2009)

Fargol1993 Though there is a dispute over the number of extant subspecies of tigers, the dispute has nevertheless been mentioned here and there, and the fact is that the Caspian tiger is the same subspecies as the Siberian tiger, genetically speaking, which made a revision of subspecies necessary in the first place. The genetic difference between the Caspian and Siberian tigers (only 1 mtDNA haplotype) is insignificant compared to differences between populations of the Bengal tiger. Leo1pard (talk) 16:09, 25 August 2019 (UTC); edited 16:10, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your thanks, Leo1pard. As you can see below, this change of the lead sentence/s was prompted by Jts1882, who should also be credited, . -- BhagyaMani (talk) 16:57, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Done, and you're welcome :) Leo1pard (talk) 18:17, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Panthera tigris virgata vs Panthera tigris tigris for Caspian tiger

Panthera tigris virgata is Caspian tiger & panthera tigris tigris is Bengal tiger Study more please and then try to edit the truth! Fargol1993 (talk) 11:30, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

YOU are the one who needs to read the provided reference before you continue to add false info!! -- BhagyaMani (talk) 11:31, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

@Fargol1993: The question of validity of a subspecific name is NOT a matter of opinion. If you choose to ignore the provided references, that is an opinion. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 12:53, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

@BhagyaMani: My resource is IUCN, you can check iucnredlist, or their site, if you call IUCN "false", thats your problem not mine. Fargol1993 (talk) 14:18, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

The IUCN Red List that you probably refer to, dates 2011. Hence is 6 years older than the revision of felid taxonomy, published in 2017. You need to bring yourself up to date, if you want to make educated contributions to wiki pages. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:54, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

@Fargol1993: The revised taxonomy is also from the IUCN, by the specialist group they set up to revise the taxonomy and advise on conservation efforts. The IUCN redlist assessments of Felidae are being updated to the revised taxonomy, but the change needs to await the next assessments for tigers.   Jts1882 | talk  15:49, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I would send you the 2019 link if Wikipedia didn't erase comments contained links. You can insist on it at last I will save my time not talking to a Nobody that does not dare to mention identity. Everybody can find it easily & figure out that Wikipedia is not reliable due to you "nonames" information editors.have fun:) Fargol1993 (talk) 17:03, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Who are the authors, and in which journal was this published? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 18:28, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I assume he means the IUCN assessments and is looking at the download date or version (i.e. 2019-2) and ignoring the assessment and publication dates. So the last assessment of the Bengal tiger was 12 February 2010 and that of the Caspian tiger was 01 July 2008, with both assessments published in 2011.

I think there is a strong case for rewording the opening sentence of the tiger articles. When it says The Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) was a tiger population which lived ... it is misleadingly implying equivalence between the Caspian tiger and the subspecies, when the former is a subset of the latter. Perhaps it would be better to have something like The Caspian tiger was a population of the mainland tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) which lived ... It was traditionally recognised as a distinct subpecies, Panthera tigris virgata, but recent studies .... The obvious difficultly is how to refer to the mainland subspecies as it has no recognised subspecies name.   Jts1882 | talk  07:08, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Hmm. You really think this person is so footled to confuse publication and download dates? I think they rather refer to a website, e.g. the Simple English wiki page still uses Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) and possibly a few other websites too. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:49, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

You have a point that readers can potentially misunderstand. How about this shorter solution then: The XX tiger is/was a Panthera tigris tigris population in ... where XX is replaced by Caspian, Siberian, Bengal, Indochinese, South China ... in respective pages ?? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:49, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that short version is better. I think it important to also mention the traditional subspecies names, partly to avoid confusion (these edits keep getting made) and partly for historical accuracy. Many of these tigers have been referred to this way for at least a century and the recent pruning of subspecies is quite revolutionary.   Jts1882 | talk  09:04, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

It looks like Illiger (1815) did not even have a skin of a tiger, nor did he mention any particular type location, only the greater region of Persia and Caspian Sea. So quite surprising that validity of virgata was unquestioned for such a looong time. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:15, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my careless edit. There weren't really any rules early on and by the time the ICZN determined the rules the name would have been in use for a century. They were just describing regional variants and giving it a name. I was surpised to read that Kitchener article (1999?) that discussed the number of skins described for various subspecies and how most subspecies were based on few skins. The reduction in number of subspecies was well overdue, although its sad to see such classic names go.   Jts1882 | talk  08:55, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Kitchener's (1999) is (one of) the first in-depth analysis of available skin and skull material. And based on his thorough review, he proposed already to recognise just 2 subspecies, tigris and sondaica; and perhaps virgata though he had just 4 specimens, admitting that it may have been isolated since Pleistocene. Which it wasn't. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:07, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about first sentence structure

See Talk:Bengal_tiger#First_sentence_structure. AnomalousAtom (talk) 08:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Taxobox

The purpose of a taxobox is to show the classification of the taxon that is the subject of the article. The article is about a population with the informal name "Caspian tiger". It is not about the subspecies, whether or not this is accepted by reliable sources. A manual taxobox with the population below some accepted rank is one solution. Another is no taxobox, on the grounds that Caspian tigers are not a distinct taxon at a rank accepted by the ICZN. A taxobox targeting a parent of the subject of the article is simply wrong, here or in any other article. It also messes up the placement of an extinct marker, as Jts1882 pointed out at Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 4#Bug?. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

We had this discussion about the correct infobox elsewhere. @Jts1882: would you please comment. – BhagyaMani (talk) 18:58, 11 January 2022 (UTC). To date, the subspecies box is used on ALL the pages on tiger populations. – BhagyaMani (talk) 19:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@BhagyaMani and Peter coxhead: please could you link to these pages? The use of a {{subspeciesbox}} on this page is simply not correct. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:18, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@SilverTiger12 and BhagyaMani: I am frankly baffled by why editors keep changing the taxobox. The article begins "The Caspian tiger was a Panthera tigris tigris population ... This population was regarded as a distinct subspecies and assessed as extinct in 2003." So:

• The article is not about a subspecies, but a population. There's no automated taxobox for a population, so we need to use a manual one.
• The Caspian tiger is extinct, so in the taxobox we need a † against the taxonomic unit that is extinct, namely the population.

A taxobox with the target Panthera tigris tigris belongs at the article Panthera tigris tigris. Just because all the other articles about populations of this subspecies have a wrong taxobox does not mean that this one should have too. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree to your sigh! Yeeears ago, I had removed the box in one of the pages on a tiger population, with a similar argument : that it is not a subspecies. But then Jts1882 convinced me that the {{subspeciesbox}} is the most appropriate to use as it is essentially an infobox conveying the same overview as the longer taxobox. And ALL the {{subspeciesbox}}es contain the presently correct subspecific name for the population, in this case P. tigris tigris. As do all the other pages on cat populations where this box is in use. That it is NOT a subspecies, is made crystal clear in the very first sentence on each of the resp. pages. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. This is NOT a subspecies, so the taxobox should not say that it is. Please see Talk:Panthera tigris tigris#Taxoboxes for populations of this subspecies for a wider discussion. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)