Tiger (Panthera tigris): Facts, Size, Habitat and Diet

What does a tiger look like?

The tiger’s coat is orange, from pale yellowish to deep reddish, with white fur on the belly, the inner legs and parts of the face. Black or dark brown stripes run mostly up and down the body, while those on the legs and forehead run sideways. The tail is ringed with thick bands and ends in a black tip.

No two tigers have the same stripes. The pattern is like a fingerprint, and the stripes are also visible on the skin underneath the fur. Researchers use this to identify individual tigers in camera-trap photos.

The back of each ear is black with a bright white spot. Tigers flick their ears to show these spots during tense encounters and between mothers and cubs. The body is long and muscular, with short, heavy legs, broad front paws and retractile claws up to about 10 cm (4 in) long. The canine teeth, at about 6.4–7.6 cm (2.5–3 in), are the longest of any living cat.

Rare color forms exist. White tigers have a white coat with dark stripes and blue eyes; golden tigers are pale gold with reddish stripes. Both are caused by recessive genes in Bengal tigers and are almost unknown in the wild today.

How big is a tiger?

Tigers vary a lot in size across their range. The table gives typical adult figures from wild animals.

Head and body length is 1.4–2.8 m (4.6–9.2 ft), with a tail of 0.6–1.1 m (2–3.6 ft), so a big male can measure about 3 m (10 ft) from nose to tail tip. Tigers stand 0.8–1.1 m (2.6–3.6 ft) at the shoulder. Island tigers in Sumatra are the smallest, and tigresses in the mangroves of the Bangladesh Sundarbans can weigh as little as 75–80 kg (165–176 lb). For detail by region and the largest reliable records, read How big is a tiger?, and for the ranking against lions and jaguars, see biggest wild cats.

Subspecies: how many kinds of tiger are there?

For most of the 20th century, tigers were split into nine subspecies: Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan, South China, Amur (Siberian), Caspian, Sumatran, Javan and Bali tigers. Three of these, the Bali, Javan and Caspian tigers, died out during the 20th century.

In 2017 the IUCN Cat Specialist Group reduced this to two subspecies, based on body measurements, ecology and DNA. The mainland tiger (P. t. tigris) includes all tigers of mainland Asia, and the Sunda tiger (P. t. sondaica) includes the tigers of Sumatra and the extinct tigers of Java and Bali. Some later whole-genome studies found that the regional populations are genetically distinct, so the question is still being reviewed. The old regional names remain widely used.

Where do tigers live?

Tigers once ranged from eastern Turkey and the Caspian Sea across Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to the Russian Far East, Korea, Java and Bali. Today they occupy less than 7% of that historic range, in scattered pockets.

Current strongholds are India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh in South Asia; Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar in Southeast Asia; the island of Sumatra; and the Amur-Ussuri region of the Russian Far East and neighboring northeast China. Tigers are considered locally extinct in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and much of China.

Tigers are highly adaptable as long as they have cover, water and enough large prey. They live in tropical rainforest, dry deciduous forest, tall riverside grassland, the mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans and the snowy pine and oak forests of Siberia, where winter temperatures drop below -30 °C (-22 °F). In Bhutan they have been recorded as high as 4,200 m (13,800 ft).

What do tigers eat?

Tigers are carnivores that hunt mainly large hoofed mammals. Favorite prey includes sambar, chital and barasingha deer, red deer (Manchurian wapiti) and sika deer in Russia, wild boar, gaur and water buffalo. They also take smaller animals such as muntjac, monkeys, porcupines, peafowl and fish, and sometimes livestock near villages.

A tiger is an ambush hunter. It creeps close under cover, then rushes the last 10–30 m (30–100 ft) and knocks the prey off balance. Small animals are killed with a bite to the back of the neck; large ones with a suffocating bite to the throat. Most attempts fail, and estimates of hunting success range from about 5% to 50% depending on the study. A tiger usually makes a large kill about once a week and can eat up to around 35–50 kg (75–110 lb) of meat in one night. More detail is in What do tigers eat?

Behavior and communication

Adult tigers live alone. Each holds a home range that it marks by spraying urine on trees and rocks, scraping the ground and clawing trunks. A male’s range overlaps those of several females. Range size depends on prey: in rich Indian forests a female may need only about 20–60 km² (8–23 sq mi), while in Russia’s Sikhote-Alin mountains females use 250–500 km² (95–200 sq mi) and males up to about 1,900 km² (730 sq mi).

Tigers are mostly active at dusk, at night and around dawn, when their prey is moving. Unlike most cats, they enjoy water: they bathe on hot days and swim across wide rivers with ease.

Their roar can be heard about 3 km (1.9 mi) away. Friendly tigers greet each other with a soft puffing snort called a chuff or prusten, and they also moan, growl, hiss and make a coughing roar when angry.

Reproduction, life cycle and lifespan

Tigers can breed at any time of year, although many matings in India happen between November and April. A female is receptive for only a few days, and the pair stays together briefly. After a pregnancy of a little over three months, she gives birth in a den in dense cover, a cave or among rocks.

A litter usually has two or three cubs, occasionally up to six or seven. The cubs are born blind and weigh about 0.8–1.6 kg (1.7–3.5 lb). They start eating meat at about two months, join their mother on hunts at eight to ten months and can make their own kills from about 11 months. Young tigers become independent at 18–24 months. Females first breed at three to four years old and males at four to five years.

The father plays no role in raising the cubs. When a new male takes over a range, he may kill cubs fathered by the previous male, which is a significant cause of cub death.

Wild tigers usually live about 10–15 years, and few pass 15. The famous Ranthambore tigress Machli reached about 19 years. In zoos, tigers often live 16–20 years, and the oldest commonly cited age is about 26. See How long do tigers live? for cub survival and the causes of death.

Predators and threats

Healthy adult tigers have no natural predators, although large dhole packs have occasionally killed tigers, and young cubs can be taken by leopards, other tigers or snakes. Prey can be dangerous too: gaur, buffalo and wild boar sometimes injure or kill tigers.

The real threats come from people:

• Habitat loss and fragmentation from farming, plantations, logging, mining and roads.
• Poaching for skins, bones and other body parts used in illegal trade and traditional medicine.
• Loss of prey through bushmeat hunting, which leaves forests “empty” even where trees remain.
• Conflict with people when tigers kill livestock and are killed in retaliation.

Conservation status

The tiger has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1986. The 2022 assessment estimated about 3,726–5,578 wild tigers. Numbers have recovered strongly in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Russia thanks to protected reserves, anti-poaching patrols and better monitoring, while populations in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have been lost. International trade in tigers and their parts is banned under CITES Appendix I. More detail is in How many tigers are left?

Myths and facts

Myth: tigers and lions live in the same places. Apart from a short historical overlap in India and Iran, they don’t. Today wild lions in India are found only in the Gir region of Gujarat, which has no wild tigers. For the full comparison, see lion vs tiger.

Myth: white tigers are a separate, endangered species. They are ordinary tigers carrying a recessive color gene: a white coat comes from a single recessive gene mutation, and no wild white tiger has been confirmed in decades

Myth: tigers hate water. Tigers are among the best swimmers in the cat family.

Tigers and people

Tigers are the national animal of India and Bangladesh and appear in the art, religion and folklore of many Asian cultures, from the Chinese zodiac to the Hindu goddess Durga, who rides a tiger. In polls they are regularly voted the world’s favorite animal.

Tigers usually avoid people, but attacks do happen where villagers enter tiger habitat, especially in the Sundarbans. Most attacks involve surprised, defending or old and injured tigers. Today more tigers live in captivity than in the wild, including several thousand in private hands in the United States and Asia; the US banned new private ownership of big cats in 2022.