Tigers are said to have originated from the Panthera genus. The closest relative of today’s tiger and leopard, Panther, is thought to have separated from the species roughly 2.8 million years ago. Trinil Tiger fossils were discovered in Java and are estimated to be 1.2 million years old. Tigers had made their way to India and other parts of Asia, including Russia and Japan, after a few thousand years.
Tiger was not scientifically described until 1758. Tigers were spotted from the Himalayan foothills to Bali. Tigers were given their scientific name, ‘Felis Tigris,’ by biologist Carl Linnaeus about the same period. Panthera tigris was given to the ‘Felis Tigris’ species by British taxonomist Reginald Innis Pocock in 1929, who placed them in the genus ‘Panthera.’ The genomic sequence of tigers was published in 2013.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed tigers as an endangered species in 2015 and listed them under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Some of the main reasons for the sharp decline in the tiger population are human-wildlife friction, habitat fragmentation, and poaching. In the 1990s, Tiger Conservation Units (T.C.U.) were established to preserve and protect areas that could support tiger populations.
September was chosen as National Save A Tiger Month by the World Wildlife Fund to remind people that the tiger population is under threat, and it is our responsibility to do our part in ensuring these magnificent creatures do not go extinct. Urban expansion and black market trade of tiger parts are a serious threat, and conservation efforts are made to stop this as much as possible.
Under The Harvest Moon 