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Turan tiger

Tiger - to whom the polosata a huge cat isn't familiar? The imagination draws at once the jungle of India or a cedar taiga of Primorye. The area of this animal is huge: from the South of Eastern Siberia to islands of the Malay Archipelago. Tigers from different edges are unlike one another. In various geographical areas cross-striped coloring of a tiger varies, and it forms the basis for allocation of subspecies - Bengalese, Chinese, sumatransky, Amur, Javanese, Bali, Turonian.

Remained tigers in the nature very little, and it induced people to undertake their protection, to include animals in the Red List in spite of the fact that until recently the tiger had a reputation for the sworn enemy of the person and with it fight was conducted.

In the extreme West of a tiger area, in the territory isolated by mountains and deserts the tiger different from all others lived. One zoologists called it "Turonian". Turan - the ancient name of low regions of Central Asia. Others called "the Caspian tiger". He lived not only in Central Asia, but also on east and southern coast of the Caspian Sea – in Transcaucasia and boundary Iran.

Reed thickets on the rivers of Central Asia - to Amu Darya, Syr-Darya, Vakhsh, Pyandzhu, Atrek, Tedzhen, Murghab were favourite habitats of an animal. To the north these tigers got to Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan. They lived in the tygai and foothill woods, and also in the damp subtropical jungle of the southern Azerbaijan and the northern provinces of Iran and Afghanistan. Arranged dens in the most impassable the krepyakh. Thus they had to answer several conditions. First of all, nearby surely there has to be a water - tigers often and in large quantities drink. For the Turonian tiger multisnow winters were heavy, and the den was arranged in the places protected from snow.

In Central Asia the tiger is called "джолбарс". "Dzhol" - a way in Kazakh. A leopard - "tramp", "the wandering leopard" - it is so possible to translate this nickname. Sometimes a tiger hunting to change of places seizes and he starts being on the tramp, puzzling and frightening people by the unexpected emergence where it didn't see before. Cases when the Turonian tigers left from native places on one thousand kilometers are known, and in days they could pass ninety. Here in 1922 one such wanderer proputeshestvovat more than four hundred kilometers on a straight line and came into the neighborhood of the city of Tbilisi. Here its course of life was interrupted by the person.

Photographers-animal painters learned to track down and photograph the most rare, reserved and dangerous animals but as they try to click the Turonian tiger, they don't manage it yet and it will hardly be possible...

There is an assumption that it disappeared forever. But if it nevertheless disappeared, there was it quite recently, and memory of it is still fresh. Judging by rare and separate descriptions, there was it over two meters long, tigresses slightly less. Such animal to two hundred kilograms weighed.

Turanets was bright red color. It was decorated by strips narrower and frequent, longer, than at other tigers. Sometimes they were not black, and brown. The fur at the Turonian tiger became more dense, silkier, especially on a nape and a belly in the winter, grew at it magnificent whiskers so the animal seemed shaggy unlike more short-haired relatives.

General impression at those who saw the Turonian tiger in the nature: harmonious combination of power and smoothness. Its six-meter jumps were slow. Grace of an animal is a little rather heavy, but this grace only visible part of extremely concentrated force.

Protective coloring concealed an animal among yellow cane stalks. In game of patches of light and shadows under bed curtains of the subtropical wood it allowed it to approach production as it is possible closer that the prompt throw was true. The rare animal could resist the weight in two centners flying in a prompt throw so black-yellow strips merged and the tiger seemed gray.

Here a case from the past. The camel beat off from a caravan, got stuck in the saline soil. As drivers tried, couldn't help the got stuck camel. Were bedded down nearby in hope after all to pull out in the morning of a camel. But at night for them it was made by a tiger. Despite proximity of people, it killed a camel and dragged it on hundred fifty steps.

Roes and boars to Transcaucasia, dzheyrana, saigas and the pendents coming from sand to a watering place to the rivers and lakes in Central Asia Bukhara deer of a hangula became its production. The hungry animal didn't disdain even to have a snack the turned-up jackal or a cane cat. But I ate drop seldom. I preferred rodents, birds, turtles, frogs, even insects! Sometimes, as if adopting habits of small cats, I became in we lie floods by the fisher, snatching out on shoal of spawning sazans. I regaled on fruits of the sucker and a sea-buckthorn.

The Dr.Sci.Biol. Sergey Ulyanovich Stroganov was one of the few zoologists studying biology of the Turonian tiger at us in the country. The scientist managed to investigate even a tiger den and to reach it, nearly two hundred meters on all fours on a track of predators - to a tunnel from wild vegetation were necessary to move ahead. The animal always suited a den in a shadow of trees, it was covered with the trampled-down grass, and it was adjoined by a platform approximately in forty square meters, all beaten out and covered with bones of the animals got by a tiger. Around there was a pungent, stinking smell.

S. U. Stroganov finished the supervision by the following characteristic: "The Turonian tiger is courageous, reserved and very sensitive. It is possible to live many years in places where tigers are found, and never to see them". However the reserve of the Turonian tiger didn't prevent people to get acquainted with him already long ago. Europe and Russia recognized him much earlier, than Indian and other colleagues.

The Turonian tiger was known still to ancient Romans. The animals caught in Persia and Armenia were delivered to Rome where the nobility played, observing bloody duels of wild animals with slaves gladiators. But the first tiger who got to Rome caused such fear, what nobody decided to fight with it in opened - the animal was destroyed in a cage. In Ancient Russia about tigers only heard that there lives in the south "a fierce animal".

Gradually contacts of Russia with neighbors extended, and tigers from Persia (present Iran) and Central Asia began to get to imperial and princely menageries. The merchant Fedor Kotov, having seen during wanderings in a shakhsky menagerie in the city of Qazvin of the Turonian tiger, I made in the twenties the XVII century its description. During that time in the Russian books of this animal called "beaver" - the word borrowed the southern neighbors - Turkic peoples. Book, Latin "тигрис" appeared later.

The tiger voice heard close causes catalepsy and fear. The zoologist K. A. Satunin, the specialist in fauna of the Caucasus, transfers him in record on letters as "low, guttural "and - about - ung". Not without reason in the east always treated a tiger as to over a being. Its ability to mask, unexpectedly to disappear and appear created to it glory of the werewolf. A tiger – the hero of myths, legends, fairy tales.

Hunting both for tigers, and for its production - boars and other hoofed animals, cutting down of the tygai and foothill woods, plowing of lands under cotton, the fires in canes - all this led to catastrophic decrease in their number.

The Turonian tiger in his fight for a survival had among animals one tiny ally. It is a malarial mosquito. Malaria long was a scourge of those places in Transcaucasia, in Central Asia and Iran where the last tigers huddled. When liquidated at us in the country and abroad its centers in a zone of an area of an animal, people began to master bravely tiger fix. Now people at last realized that the tiger should be protected. Formally Turonian tiger is protected everywhere. In the republics of the Soviet Union its shooting is strictly forbidden, for the broken large fines are established. In Iran for its protection even the wildlife area of hundred thousand hectares is created, but most likely with these measures people were already late.

But even if it was also succeeded to find for the last Turonian tigers, it would be difficult to keep them in the nature. An individual site, peculiar natural the open-air cage of this predator it isn't small, not less than forty square kilometers, and for free life it needs one thousand square kilometers the prirechnykh of the thickets rich with wild hoofed animals. Complicates business and tendency of a dzholbars to wanderings. It would be possible to keep it, having transferred the last individuals to a zoo where they would breed...

But, alas, now the Turonian tigers didn't remain, seemingly, even in bondage. In Moscow Zoo there lived a manual tigress Theresa presented to the Soviet ambassador in Iran in 1926; it fell at the age of eighteen years. And in general tigers can live to fifty.

At the dual relation of the person to this animal today the question costs unambiguously: to protect! The tiger in own way guards the wild nature, improving populations of hoofed animals. Its only one presence at grounds develops extra care at animals, promotes their resilience. There is more: long ago it is known that the tiger persistently pursues wolves. And the wild fauna suffers from them much more.

It is a pity to leave hope to see this animal the live. Really descendants should meet him on the faded effigies with the glazed-over look and the plate: "It is exterminated in the XX century!"

Read also:
OverviewColoringNutrimentHuntingRoar and voiceObstacles to successful huntingFailuresProcreationAmur tigerSumatran tigerTuran tigerCaspian tiger