What Are the Feeding Habits of a Tiger?
The tiger is the largest member of the "big cats" of the genus Panthera (which includes the lion, jaguar and leopard). It is an apex predator across its range, which covers eastern and southern Asia. Though known to scavenge, the tiger is built to hunt, with the physical features, heightened senses and instinct to capture and consume prey necessary for survival in its habitat.
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Diet
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Tigers are carnivores. The diet of a tiger varies depending on where it lives and the supply of animals from which to feed. Prey can be as small as termites. However, a tiger needs a substantial diet of prey weighing approximately 45 pounds. This includes animals like deer, pigs, cows, goats, buffalo and bears. A tiger is estimated to eat a deer-size animal a week, or about 50 per year.
Choosing Prey
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A tiger can stay on the hunt for up to 20 miles a night. It will focus on a young, old or weak animal to increase the odds in its favor. Although a tiger has the ability to take down animals larger than itself, it is selective in its hunting, showing caution about attacking an animal that could injure or kill it. It's also wary when catching young animals like a baby elephant or rhino, in case the parent animals retaliate.
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Catching Prey
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A tiger will move behind a prey target and pounce. Tigers have low stamina, so they often have to rely on their heightened senses to catch prey. A powerful sense of hearing allows a tiger to locate prey easily, and its stripes give it good camouflage. It also uses its strong vision to spy on an unsuspecting animal. It does most of its hunting at night because it can see up to six times better than humans, for example, in the dark. A tiger will creep up behind its prey and wait until it's close enough to pounce. It will bite the animal's neck and dig its large claws into the body. If the prey animal is small enough, the tiger can sever the neck quickly.
Feeding
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A tiger uses his teeth to pick apart prey. A tiger has 30 teeth, each with a specific purpose during feeding. The two large canines at the front have pressure-sensing nerves for locating where to sever a prey animal's neck. The carnassials, or back teeth, shear meat from the victim's bones, which is swallowed whole. The small incisors at the front allow the tiger to cleave small pieces of meat and feathers from the prey's body.
Sharing Food
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The tiger is a solitary animal; it lives and hunts alone. When a tiger kills its prey, it will carry the carcass up a tree or take it to a secluded area to stop other tigers from feeding on it. Only when it has reached a secure area will it chow down. However, some male tigers have been seen offering their food to females. He will give the meat to a female and her cubs before eating himself. A tiger usually extends food to relatives, although it will also give food to those it isn't related to.
Change in Feeding Habit
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Tigers usually feed at night, but if they're starving, they will hunt during the day. Because of low stamina, young and old tigers can starve to death from lack of success on the hunt. A tiger does not usually target humans. But it is believed that once a tiger has lost its ability to hunt in the wild, it may turn to local villages. Domesticated animals, like dogs, cats and horses, and humans then become a readily available source of food.
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References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images Tom Brakefield/Stockbyte/Getty Images
