The role of tigers in human life

Today we are going to talk about tigers, and everyone should be familiar with them. Tigers are terrible? Or respectable? Still cute? What do we know about tigers? How did this tiger come from? That's it. How did this evolve? How many subspecies are tigers divided into now? We saw a white tiger in the zoo, didn't we? What is this? Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to give you a comprehensive introduction to some basic knowledge of tigers. Its purpose is to attract people to protect this endangered species in China. Today, I will introduce tigers to you in eight parts.

The first part is an overview, the second part is origin, the third part is radiation evolution, the fourth part is subspecies differentiation, the fifth part is ecology and some of its habits, the sixth part is its historical changes, and then some interesting things about tigers are said. The last key part is the protection of tigers.

As we all know, once upon a time, there was one of the fiercest carnivores in the lush forest-the tiger. Through the dense forest, Lei Lei Shijian, in the depths of the forest, there are tigers moving. It is frightening and full of mysterious yearning. But now that tigers have become endangered species, it is difficult to see them in the forest. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, there were about 654.38+million wild tigers in the world. After more than a hundred years, the number of wild tigers in the world has dropped sharply to about 6,000. There are only five of the eight subspecies of tigers. Li Haihu, Bali Lake Tiger and Java Tiger became extinct in the last century. Among the remaining five subspecies, there may be only 20 wild South China tigers left in China. It is urgent to protect the tigers that have been with us for thousands of years and the tigers that have lived on the earth for millions of years. Save the tiger, save a new dream in human heart, because we want to live poetically on this blue planet, and all life should be in our peaceful place.

Tiger, the cat on the earth (full text)

Today we are going to talk about tigers, and everyone should be familiar with them. Tigers are terrible? Or respectable? Still cute? What do we know about tigers? How did this tiger come from? That's it. How did this evolve? How many subspecies are tigers divided into now? We saw a white tiger in the zoo, didn't we? What is this? Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to give you a comprehensive introduction to some basic knowledge of tigers. Its purpose is to attract people to protect this endangered species in China. Today, I will introduce tigers to you in eight parts.

The first part is an overview, the second part is origin, the third part is radiation evolution, the fourth part is subspecies differentiation, the fifth part is ecology and some of its habits, the sixth part is its historical changes, and then some interesting things about tigers are said. The last key part is the protection of tigers.

As for tigers, the first part is an overview. Tigers belong to mammals, carnivores, cats and leopards. This sounds boring. Let me give you an example. Before describing a species, zoologists should classify it and put the same species together. For example, like us, like an organizational structure. There are many research institutes under Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. There are many research rooms under the institute, and there are many research groups under the research room. And what is it like when zoologists classify each species? He divided this species into what we often call worlds, phylum, class, order, genus and species. What about this world? That's the animal kingdom. The so-called animal kingdom is a moving species. Door, which door is it? It's vertebrate phylum, which means there are vertebrae behind it. All these animals put it in a door, which is called vertebrate door. Which class is it? It is a mammal, especially a mammal, and its young need breastfeeding to grow up. So we classify this kind of animals into one category, and then this tiger belongs to Carnivora. Carnivora means that it mainly preys on other animals to survive. It eats meat, but not plants. This animal is called a carnivore. Which family does it belong to? This is a cat. It is very similar to our cat, so it belongs to the category of cats. It is very similar to the leopard we see. Lions, tigers and leopards belong to the same category, so this is a rough classification order.

The tiger is called the king of beasts, which is what we usually see. Tigers have stripes on their heads. We in China think that there are three horizontal lines on the tiger's head, like the word "Wang". Why do we say it is the king of beasts? First, it is relatively large and feeds on other animals. It is at the top of this food chain. It lives by eating other animals, so it plays an important role in maintaining ecological balance. So it belongs to the king of beasts, and the tiger is an important part of our cultural tradition in China. As we said, where is the tiger in the zodiac? Is the third place, right! Everyone knows that there are many idioms about tigers, such as "tiger leaping", "tiger gaining momentum", "tiger adding wings", "talking about the color change of a tiger" and "nothing ventured, nothing gained". These idioms are very similar to some habits of tigers, which were summed up by our common people in their long-term contact with tigers. They can fully reflect some habits of tigers. How on earth did the tiger originate? We just talked about the leopard that appeared about 5 million years ago. Where did it originate? It originated in Asia and then radiated from Asia. It is generally believed that tigers originated in eastern Asia, especially in China. In our country, it is earlier than other members of the leopard genus, such as lions or leopards, and it first differentiated about two million years ago. China's South China Tiger is unique to China. It is considered as the ancestor of all tigers and a primitive group. Tigers are now divided into eight subspecies. Unfortunately, three of them are extinct. First, briefly introduce the distribution of various subspecies: Bengal tiger, distributed in India, Myanmar, Nepal, eastern Tibet and southern Yunnan. Its body color changes greatly, including white and black. The white tiger that we will talk about later is a morphological change of this Bengal tiger. It is not the albino individual that we humans see, it is not an albino individual, but the change of its body color. It is about 2.9 meters long and weighs 220 kilograms. The female is slightly smaller, about 2.5 meters long and weighs 140 kg. There is a great difference in the size of tigers between male and female. Generally speaking, males are bigger than females. In the animal kingdom, males are more attractive and stronger than females. Maybe birds are more obvious. Men look better than women. As can be seen from peacocks, this situation is scientifically called hermaphroditism.

The second is the Indo-Chinese tiger, which is distributed in Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and Malaysia. It used to be distributed in western Guangxi or Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, but now it may be hard to see. The male is about 2.7 meters long and weighs 180 kg. The female is about 2.4 meters and weighs 1 15 kg, which is a general situation of the Indo-Chinese tiger.

The third kind is the Northeast Tiger, which is the heaviest of all tigers. Where is it distributed? It is distributed in Russia and the Far East, as well as northeast China and parts of North Korea. How long is its male? How old is it? Its body length reaches 3.3 meters and its weight can reach 300 kilograms. That's the biggest. The female is slightly smaller, 2.6 meters long and weighs about 167 kg.

The fourth is the South China Tiger. As I said just now, the South China Tiger is an endemic subspecies in China, which only exists in mountainous areas in South China, Central China or Southwest China. Its size is the smallest of all tigers. The weight is about 150kg, and the female is about 1 10kg.

The fifth subspecies is the Sumatran tiger, which is only distributed in Sumatra. Its body shape is also relatively small, male about 2.4 meters, weight 120 kg, female 2.2 meters, weight about 90 kg.

The sixth subspecies is Li Haihu, which was once distributed in Iranian, Afghan, Russian and Xinjiang in China. Unfortunately, this kind of tiger was completely extinct in the 1970s. The extinction time of our country was roughly in the 1920s and earlier.

This is Li Haihu, and there is another kind of tiger, Balihu, which is only distributed in Bali. This kind of tiger became extinct in the 1940s. It is said that the last tiger was killed in the field of 1937. This is the last tiger killed, and the last subspecies is the Java tiger. Unfortunately, the Java tiger is extinct and only distributed in Java. Its extinction time was probably in the 1980s, and it is said that the last time this kind of Java tiger was seen was in 1972.

Let's start with the ecology and habits of tigers. What is its habitat like? Tigers are typical mountain animals. There must be mountains and forests to have tigers. Its distribution ranges from the tropical rain forest in the south to the coniferous forest in the sub-frigid zone in the north, and the common people usually summarize it as "the tiger is the king in the forest". Right? Why is there a saying in our idiom that "a tiger falls in Pingyang and is bullied by a dog"? In other words, the tiger is a forest animal. After it arrived in the plain, its ability was relatively poor. Therefore, the idiom summarized by our common people is called "there is no tiger in the mountain, and the monkey is the overlord", right? What are its eating habits? Tigers mainly feed on various large and medium-sized herbivores and omnivores, such as the familiar wild boar, deer, bison, roe deer, and some musk deer and muntjac. It occasionally eats some big insects. It tastes fresh in autumn, and it is very rare to eat fruits and the like. Its food is mainly some large and medium-sized herbivores, and the diet composition in different regions is also different. Just like us, the south and the north may eat differently. Then it depends on the food richness of tigers in different regions. How much does a tiger eat every day? Do you know how much we eat every day? Maybe a kilo of rice, right? I can't eat yet. I have food now. If there is one kilogram of rice, it is one kilogram. But how much does the tiger eat? According to statistics, a tiger can only eat five to six kilograms of meat every day to survive. Five to six kilograms, how much can it eat all year round? A lot, close to two tons. Weight 1825 kg to 2 190 kg, which is lean meat. Tigers hunt in the wild with bones, which can't be digested. If 30% indigestible food is excluded, the estimated amount is between 2373 kg and 2847 kg. Isn't this number abstract? Let's turn it into what we know as muntjac. How much does this 20 kg red muntjac need a year? Only by preying on 143 muntjac can they survive. If this tiger is in the breeding season, its food intake will be even greater, which will increase to about 50%. Now there are so many tigers in our zoo, and many of them are kept by some institutions, so it is estimated that the cost of raising a tiger a year is around 10 thousand. In this Xionghu Mountain Villa and Xionghu Mountain Villa in Guangxi, they have fed nearly 100 tigers, which means they are under great pressure. Because tigers can't be used now, trading in tiger bones is forbidden. So what should we do? What is the way out for tigers? We urgently need to call for solving this problem in the future.

Tiger, how did it come to hunt? What is its predation strategy? We say it usually adopts sneak attack. First, it is hidden. With the help of some terrain, some forests and trees, we will hide in that place first. Then one way is to wait for the prey to approach, wait for the prey to come, and suddenly rush in and attack. Another way is to approach the prey slowly like this, and then wait until it is within its effective range before attacking. In this way, it can sneak up on the food it needs. Then it catches the prey. How can it kill it? It has two ways. What is one-way? For this small or medium-sized herbivore, bite its throat, bite it, and suffocate it. And bison, a big individual, a big prey? It climbed onto the back of the bison and took a bite, then bit off the bison's spine and let it die slowly. These are its two predation strategies. Generally, if you prey on a deer, say 100 kilograms, you can eat it for a long time. It can move the deer to other places to hide and enjoy it slowly, which is a way for it to hunt or kill.

Here are some things about raising tigers. The female tiger is about three years old. She is sexually mature and can participate in breeding. The man is a little late. Male and female estrus occurs from June 165438+ 10 to February of the following year. You can only be in estrus once a year. How long has it been pregnant? The mother tiger is about 3.5 months old, and we humans are pregnant 10 months. The tiger was only 3.5 months old. How much does each fetus give birth to? Usually one to five cubs, usually two to three. We went to the zoo to see the baby tiger, and the mother tiger held three or four cubs. Generally speaking, it is two or three cubs. Cubs and tigresses usually live for two to three years before leaving their mothers. At this time, because the tigress is no longer in estrus to look after her cubs, she no longer participates in reproduction. How much does the baby weigh? As we all know, pandas are very large individuals, 100 kilograms. The baby is that big, 80 grams to 100 grams. The tiger is so big. How old is its cub? About a kilo, only a kilo. It usually takes more than two months for a tigress to breastfeed, and the little tiger learns how to hunt with the tigress. It was about 1.5 years old that the little tiger began to hunt alone. This is about the Cubs.

Its social behavior is a tiger. It moves alone. Unlike lions, they live in groups and many of them are in the same place. It moves alone, and they don't get together until the breeding season. Only when men and women are together can a small community be formed. These cubs will follow their mothers before they are two or three years old, as we just said. Therefore, before the age of two to three, the cubs and their mothers will form a community, a small community. Tigers. We know tigers have territory. Protect your territory, how to represent your territory? Which land is mine? We humans also have a range of activities, so how does the tiger know which land is mine? It generally uses urine and marks it on the way. He peed in some places while walking. Peeing means it smells. Through chemical communication, other tigers smell this smell, indicating that this is not their own territory. Different tigers can recognize different smells, so they must leave this place. Another method is that perianal glands can be rubbed and rubbed on the trunk. The purpose is to leave some odor and then mark its territory through chemical communication. It marks its active area in this way, so how big is its active range? How big is this sign? Through the research of scientists, this tiger, the Northeast Tiger, has an activity range of 1000 square kilometers, and its activity range is 800 to 1000 square kilometers. Bengal tiger is slightly smaller, about 30 to 105 square kilometers. This is a male and a female. As we said, it is relatively small. The female Siberian tiger is about 100 to 400 square kilometers. Bengal tiger is only between 10 square kilometers and 39 square kilometers.

How far can a tiger run all the year round? We measure its average distance with a map. How far can it run? Males can move 33 kilometers, up to 65 kilometers. The mother tiger is closer. About ten kilometers. That is, the longest distance can reach 30 kilometers. This is because the distance it moves has a great relationship with its nest domain, so how do you get these data? Even if we can't see the tiger in the wild, do you know how it ran so far? Now with the development of science and technology, some new technologies are applied. That is, I will introduce a method to you below, and one is the method of radio telemetry. Is to feed animals. Now we may watch Animal World or other movies. One is a collar, which is a radio transmitter around the neck. This radio transmitter transmits at different frequencies, and we can receive its signal through the receiver. Then we can monitor where the tiger moves every day. This traditional radio transmission opportunity has an impact on tigers. Because the collar is always worn around the neck, you can't take it off. Now with the development of technology, this collar can be expanded. As the tiger grows, it can expand. So it won't suffocate the tiger. The second one is now the other one. This collar will come off automatically. You press a button and it takes off on its own. The impact on tigers is not great, and then you can recycle it. Now with the development of science and technology, this kind of radio is not what we used to receive through the receiver. Now it can be received directly by satellite, saving time and effort. Its signal is directly connected to the satellite, so we can know where the tiger is moving when sitting in the room, and we all know its latitude and longitude. So with the development of technology, through these methods, we can know how big the tiger is.

First of all, this kind of tiger was once widely distributed. What is its distribution now? How much has its distribution shrunk? Let's talk about its historical changes first, and its distribution changes first. Tiger is one of the most widely distributed cats in the world, and its distribution area covers a wide range from 10 degrees south of the equator to 60 degrees north of the equator. Originally, its distribution area was very wide, but now it has shrunk to a very small territory. In other words, its habitat is completely isolated and its distribution area is very small. The same is true of tigers in our country. The original distribution area is also very wide, and now it is distributed into many small pieces. Some words are like the South China Tiger, but whether they exist, as I said just now, I don't know yet. There may or may not be. But there are fewer and fewer zoos, only two, one is Chongqing Zoo and the other is Suzhou Zoo. Only these two families and the South China Tiger. In the wild, we hope it still exists. Through the research of scientists, we may be able to find its trace again.

How many wild tigers are there in the world now? According to the statistics of scientists, the number in the world at present is about 5 183 to 7277. How many people are there? We didn't know it at first, and now there is no statistics. It is certain that the number of tigers has dropped greatly. Because its habitat is gone, it is said that the current number is roughly like this. How many tigers are there in China? At present, the number of wild tigers is estimated to be 1 10 to 140, which is more precious than giant pandas. The number of wild giant pandas is about 1000, so the trend faced by tigers in our country is very serious. According to the statistics of our country, there are about 30 to 35 Bengal tigers and 30 to 40 Indochina tigers. According to the statistics of foreigners, there are only about 30 to 35 Northeast tigers and 20 to 30 South China tigers. This is also an estimate, but we haven't seen any reports about it yet, that is, there are South China tigers in the wild. There are reports but they have not been confirmed, and even if there are reports, they have not been confirmed in the wild. We just mentioned several other subspecies, Bali tiger and Java tiger. Unfortunately, due to human destruction, Li Haihu's habitat disappeared and became extinct in different periods. This is our human regret and sorrow. What are the reasons for endangerment? The first is the loss of a habitat, so the tiger has a large range of activities. It has no habitat and nowhere to go, which is one of the main reasons why it is endangered. Tigers have disappeared, habitats have disappeared and many places have been occupied by us humans. It used to belong to their territory, but later it was occupied by us humans. This is one reason.

The second is direct hunting. Tiger bone has a very high medicinal value in China traditional medicine. Perhaps many old people know that tiger bones can cure rheumatism. Chinese medicine uses tigers as medicine and kills tigers in the wild. In our traditional culture in China, tiger skin is also regarded as a status symbol. My family has a tiger skin, as if I were in a high position. Maybe young comrades haven't seen Outward Outward Outward. There is a mountain sculpture in "Take Tiger Mountain Outside". I remember seeing that the chair where Shan Diao sat was made of tiger skin, symbolizing his position. This is a symbol of status.

In 1950s and 1960s, there was another activity to destroy harmful animals, which was a catastrophe to the tiger resources in our country. According to statistics, from 1955 to 1966, there were17/kloc-0 tigers killed in Jiangxi province. Some scholars estimate that about 3,000 tigers were killed in the 30 years before China banned tigers in the late 1970s. This is an estimate, so hunting is another reason why it is endangered.

The third possibility is food loss, habitat destruction, and overfishing and hunting. It also led to the decrease of other large and medium-sized herbivores and omnivores, which aggravated the lack of tiger food. It led to the decline of the tiger, right? Tigers can't live without food. I once had a friend who was traveling in Tibet. The local people asked him, why do we eat our sheep and our cows when they say we are tigers? My friend answered him, and I felt very clever. What did he say? He said that because you ate his sheep and cows, he had to eat yours. Why is this happening? In other words, local people have the habit of hunting other animals, such as some food of tigers and rock sheep, which were beaten by local hunters. So the tiger's food is reduced. It has nothing to eat. It also has to eat your people's cattle and sheep. This is a ... The fourth aspect may be the loss of genetic diversity, because the number of tigers is getting smaller and smaller, and the habitat is getting smaller and smaller. They are all kept in captivity, so tigers will inevitably increase the degree of inbreeding between them, which will lead to the loss of their genetic diversity. This is one of the reasons for its population decline.

I talked about the white tiger earlier. Is the white tiger an albino individual? No, it's the color change of Bengal tiger. This kind of white tiger is hard to see in the wild. It is said that what you see in the wild is about 1907 to 1933. White tigers have never been found in the wild since 1950s. 195 1 year, an Indian named maharaja met his first white tiger in the wild. He sent it to the zoo and named it "OHAN". All the white tigers we see now are descendants of this kind of tiger. At present, the number of white tigers may be above 100, and the specific number has not been counted. So how did this produce so many white tigers behind a tiger? Roughly speaking, that is to say, some genetic problems

There are also hybrids between tigers and lions. Tigers and lions are distributed in different places. Lions are distributed in Africa, and tigers are mainly in Asia. They can't cross in the wild. In the zoo, there are hybrid individuals who occasionally produce offspring under the condition of artificial reproduction. The success rate is low. We know about mules, right? It is a hybrid between a horse and an ass, and it is a mule produced by crossing a horse and an ass. This kind of mule has very good endurance, can move things and is also very powerful. Scientists in the zoo crossed a tiger with a lion and produced a beast called tiger and lion, or tigon. At present, there are only about ten tigers and lions in the world.

Finally, talk about the protection of tigers. The important role of tigers in natural ecosystems is increasingly endangered, which has been gradually recognized by our government and has attracted great attention. In the late 1970s, China issued a ban on fishing. 1980 released the National Key Wildlife List, and tigers were listed as key protected animals in China, and hunting was strictly prohibited. 1993 the State Council issued a notice to further ban the trade in tiger bones and their products. Now some tiger products, such as musk tiger bone paste, can't be seen in the street, which is forbidden. In our country, in 1998, the State Forestry Administration has also formulated a protection plan for the wild Amur tiger.

Some artificial breeding bases have also been established all over the country. For example, in Suzhou, we established the China South China Tiger Suzhou Breeding Base; Northeast China has also established a breeding base for Siberian tigers. On the other hand, China has also strengthened the construction of nature reserves. 200 1 More than 20 nature reserves related to tigers have been established in China. There are about 2,000 protected areas in China. Now, we should first establish these protected areas. With China's economic growth and the improvement of people's living standards, it is better to protect it first. There will be more money in the future, and then it will be invested in conservation. Some international organizations are also committed to protecting tigers and other rare animals, such as famous international organizations, such as "Save the Tiger International Foundation", WWF, WWF, CI. These organizations came to China to help China protect some endangered and rare animals unique to China. There are also some websites on the Internet that disseminate tiger information and improve tigers to raise public awareness of protecting tigers. In a word, people are more and more aware of the importance of protecting tigers, and protecting tigers has now become a science for scientists.

References:

/program/bjjt/2003 1 125/ 10 1450 . shtml