Question

What are some adaptive traits for tigers

what are some adaptations of a tiger

Answer 1

Adaptations of tiger

Tigers belong to the Felidae or cat family. They are one of the most furious and dominant hunters of all animals in the whole world. A full grown tiger can be somewhere from 9 to 11 feet in length and 500 to 650 pounds in weight. Their structural and functional adaptations allows them to defeat even oversized animals. Female tigers are massive hunters than males as they are responsible for feeding their offspring (cubs) .

Structural adaptations and traits

• Camouflage : This is the one of the most important structural adaptation of tigers. Their stripped coats helps them to blend with the environment. The stripes helps them to create similar shadows casted by the like the tress and long wild grasses in sunlight.
• Audible or hearing: They have a very sharp sense of hearing. They are even capable hearing sounds below the normal audible range. They use infrared sounds to communicate.
• Flexible spine: Tigers have flexibile spines which helps them to jump several feet in a single leap. It also helps to increase their strength. Unlike humans their back bone or vertebrae extends till the tip of their tail.
• Swimming: Like most mammals they can swim. Their strong body and webbed claws helps them to swim.
• Jaws and dentition: They have powerful lower jaw with sharp dentition. They have 30 therth with canine being largest. Canines are 2.5 to 3 inches long which helps them to give bites reaching the vertebrae of the preying animal.
• Sight: They have a very good binocular vision with more amount of rod cells than cone cells making even the nocturnal vision possible. Excellent eyesight helps them to even calculate distance to the prey.
• False eye: It is a marking on the back of the ears of the tiger. This marks at the back side helps to pretend it saw the prey even when it doesn’t.
• Feet and claws: Their hind legs are slightly longer than the forelegs which Helps them to jump about 30 feet at a single time. They have padded feet which helps them to move around in almost silence. Extremely sharp claws four in hind limbs and five in the forelimbs, helps them to grab and kill the prey. They have protective coating which prevents them from breakage.