Key Points:
- Tigers are the largest cats in the world–bigger than lions and much bigger than humans–at an average of 300-400 lbs. Siberian tigers weigh up to 660 lbs., but Sumatran tigers are less than 350.
- In the video, we see several tigers who look pretty big until another tiger saunters in and makes the others look small!
- The smaller tigers make way for the big tiger who obviously dominates. When another tiger dares to growl at him, the foolish one is soon falling down and rolling over, seemingly asking for mercy!
When it comes to big cats, tigers are undoubtedly the kings. Although lions are big and hunt in packs (prides), tigers are individually larger and easily take the top spot as the largest cats in the world. Even still, there are different types of tigers throughout the world, and not all of them are equal. As one clip shows, sometimes other tigers look small when you compare them to the world’s largest tigers!
Make sure you check out the short clip below!
In a short TikTok clip, we get to see just how disparate different animals can be, even within the same species. The clip begins with a group of tigers being kept in a pen, probably at a zoo. At first glance, these tigers look massive, as they probably are!
The male tiger can reach up to 680 lbs., although most are closer to 300-400 lbs. In the clip, most of the tigers we see are likely around the average weight of a tiger. When compared to a human, a tiger can easily weigh 2-6 times more than an adult! Seeing the three tigers in the video is cool, but it’s not what made the clip go viral in the first place.
Once we have our relative size expectations set, they are then blown out of the water. Only a few seconds into the clip another tiger appears on the screen. While the other tigers are big in relation to a human, this new tiger is big in relation to other tigers!
The smallest type of tiger in the world is the Sumatran tiger.
©Marten_House/Shutterstock.com
Lumbering through the gate, this mega-tiger is so big that the other ones in the pen step aside and make way for it. It isn’t just fat, either, although it’s definitely one fat cat. Its head and body are so much larger and stockier, it makes the other tigers look like they are just little kittens.
We don’t really know what kinds of tigers we are seeing in the clip, but it is well-established that Siberian tigers are the largest in the world. Siberian tigers, often called Amur tigers, often top 660 lbs and can measure over 10 feet long from nose to tail tip. These tigers can be found in the mountain forests of eastern Russia and around the border with China, making them extremely rare.
The smallest type of tiger in the world is the Sumatran tiger. These tigers rarely reach over 350 lbs, primarily because of the smaller prey sources found on the Sumatran Islands. Sadly, Sumatran tigers are also the most critically endangered subspecies of tiger in the world, even more than the Siberian tiger.
We can’t say for certain that the larger tiger is a different subspecies than the other tigers in the clip, but it’s clear that it eats more than the others! That’s probably just one of the advantages of being a tiger among kittens.
The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/Ondrej Prosicky
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