Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tiger Cubs!

Today I want to talk about tiger cubs.  Like us, they are born helpless and must rely on their mother for protection and nourishment.  They are blind upon birth and don't reach their full visual capacity for weeks.  It isn't until they reach the age of two that they can even begin hunting for themselves.  Because of the great amount of time and energy it takes to feed extra mouths, a tigress can generally only keep two of her cubs alive, no matter her initial litter size.

To protect herself and her cubs, a tigress finds shelter in dens where visibility from the outside is low.  This is important because the young tiger cubs must be left alone while their mother is hunting.  By about eight months, the tiger cubs can follow their mother on hunts and learn the tricks of the trade. 

Once they are around two years old, tiger cubs become independent of their mother.  Males roam further from their mother's territory than females and eventually establish their own territory once they reach full maturity. 

Resources:

Pictures:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/61945407/white_tiger_cubs_by_buggy12.jpg
http://awtlblog.vitsco.com/wp-content/uploads/2003/10/Sumatran-Tiger-Cubs.jpg

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4 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 10, 2012 at 10:59 AM

    A tiger mother usually only having two tiger cubs, no matter how many she has to begin with reminds me of Dawkins' parental investment theory. There are only so many resources a parent can invest and if there is a runt in a litter of three, sadly, it might be more beneficial for the mother to invest her limited resources into the two stronger cubs even though each cub has half of her genes. Dawkins' ideas about an organism being a survival machine with the main goal of propagating as much of its genetic material into the environment as possible explains many behaviors in the animal kingdom that may seem strange when people think about how they behave towards offspring.

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  2. UnknownApril 10, 2012 at 4:54 PM

    I wonder how many cubs tigers have in the initial litter? This is interesting because I wonder if it is because of their solitary lifestyle that they do not have that many cubs. If they were in a pride like lions, they would have more than enough females to hunt as well as watch the cubs. Also, do most of the cubs die of starvation because the mother cannot feed them all or is it because of predators (when the mother leaves or they wander too far)?

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  3. TeresaApril 25, 2012 at 6:15 PM

    These are absolutely adorable. How many cubs die off from each litter? I just saw that there's another person questioning this and it was my same initial thought. Also, do the cubs fight it out like those masked boobies we saw in the movie in class, and thats how they end up surviving in the litter, or does the mom have more of a choice? It'd be interesting to find out.

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  4. SarahMay 17, 2012 at 7:13 PM

    Tiger cubs are some of the cutest. I think its neat that the tiger cubs can be either white or orange. Its also amazing that at only 8 months they start learning how to hunt with their mothers.

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