Bio #2: Tiger

 Bio #2:

 Tiger

Tigers are amazing creatures, with many different subspecies. The Sumatran tiger is the smallest, and the Siberian tiger is the biggest of all tigers. They are all orange with black stripes, though colors vary according to species. About 50 years ago, there used to be 8 species of tigers. Now there are only 5. 3 have gone extinct.
Tigers are one of the primary consumers in the jungle. They are carnivorous, and their diet varies. The tiger hunts at night, able to easily take down animals such as deer, boars, and cattle. They also eat small animals in order to survive. 
Interesting tiger facts:

• Tigers have amazing camouflage. Their orange and white fur blend in with the environment perfectly. Like zebras and fingerprints, no two tigers have the same patterns on their fur. Plus, their stripes aren't just on their hair. If you shaved a tiger's fur off (don't do it) they would still have their stripes.
• Most cats dislike water, right. Well, the biggest cat in the jungle is different. Tigers love taking baths and swimming in the water. They only go into neck-deep water, because they don't like getting their eyes wet. They sometimes even swim backwards in order to not get water in their eyes! Thanks to their webbed feet, tigers not only like swimming, they're good at it, too, and can swim for 20 miles on 1 outing!
• Tigers' saliva are very good at healing their wounds. However, their saliva doesn't heal humans' wounds, and this is the thing that many people don't believe. Many, many tigers have been killed because people used their derivatives in Chinese medicine for about 1000 years. Their has never been any evidence that tigers' derivatives heal others' wounds, though.
•  Tigers have superhuman- or supertiger- senses. Their most developed sense is hearing, but they have excellent color and binocular vision. They can see 6 times better than a human.Their roars can be heard from 2 miles away. Tigers' canine teeth can grow up to 3 inches. DO NOT STICK YOUR FINGER IN A TIGER'S MOUTH. THEIR POWERFUL TEETH CAN CHOMP THROUGH THE VERTEBRAE OF EVERY LIVING BEING ON EARTH!
• Tigers can eat up to 30 pounds of food a day, and can go for a few days without any food. They can pull things that would take 15 humans to pull, and may travel miles to go to their favorite haunts. 
• Some tigers are white. However, these tigers are very rare. Only about 1 in 10000 tigers are white!
• Tiger's can weigh up to 660 pounds! Tiger cubs usually stay with their mothers until they are about 2 years old, but many tigers- about half of them- never live beyond two years of age. :(
• When tigers mate with lions, they give birth to hybrids called tigons and ligers. 

So why are tigers endangered? Many reasons. Places that were once filled with trees have now become cities.Tigers need forests and lots of room to survive, and humans are not giving them what they need. Also because of this, tigers cannot mate with many other tigers, and instead mate with the same group over and over. Over time this weakens tigers and cubs are born with birth defects. 
Also, poaching. On the black market, every single piece of tiger is worth alot of money- EVERY SINGLE PIECE. A tiger's coat can be sold for $20000. This is another big reason why tigers are being killed off. There are only about 3000-4000 tigers left in the world. A century ago there was 100000. There are more tigers as pets than there are tigers in the wild.
We have to protect these animals. They are a giant part of our food chain. We CANNOT let them go extinct. Please help. Look at these websites for more info: 
http://animal.discovery.com/tv/tiger-spy-jungle/about-tigers/all-tigers.html
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals/tiger.html

Baby white tiger cubs.

The tiger.

This is a liger.

 

 

 

This is a tigon.