page_title: Tiger
section_title: Subspecies
hierarchical_section_title: Tiger / Taxonomy and genetics / Subspecies
caption_attribution_description: English: Haplotype designations are color coded by subspecies of the tigers that carried them. PTV-2 is a Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) specimen for which all gene segments attempted (1257 bp) in Caspian tigers were successfully sequenced. Other Caspian tigers produced partial sequences identical to PTV-2. The only exceptions were three individuals, each displaying a single derived nucleotide difference when compared to PTV-2 (found only in that individual and in no other tigers of any subspecies). Likewise, the only mtDNA haplotype carried by Amur or “Siberian” tigers (P. t. altaica) proved to be a single derived step away from the haplotype of PTV-2, suggesting a close relationship between the Amur and Caspian tiger subspecies. Tiger haplotypes carried by all but the Caspian subspecies are from a previously published dataset, while a clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) sequence (GenBank DQ257669) was used to root the tree. The tree depicted was inferred using maximum parsimony, with the number of steps/homoplasies listed above the branches, while (for major clades) bootstrap percentages are listed below branches for maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Neighbour Joining methods. We used full length mtDNA sequences of clouded leopard, leopard and snow leopard to root the tree; all combinations of 1, 2 or 3 outgroups yielded trees with similar topology to the one depicted, with the same basal position for the P. t. amoyensis AMO1 haplotype, and a close relationship between P.t. virgata and P. t. altaica haplotypes. doi:info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004125.g002
context_page_description: The tiger is the largest extant cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange-brown fur with a lighter underside. It is an apex predator, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat, which support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years, before they become independent and leave their mother's home range to establish their own.
  The tiger once ranged widely from the Eastern Anatolia Region in the west to the Amur River basin, and in the south from the foothills of the Himalayas to Bali in the Sunda islands. Since the early 20th century, tiger populations have lost at least 93% of their historic range and have been extirpated in Western and Central Asia, from the islands of Java and Bali, and in large areas of Southeast and South Asia and China. Today's tiger range is fragmented, stretching from Siberian temperate forests to subtropical and tropical forests on the Indian subcontinent and Sumatra.
context_section_description: Following Linnaeus's first descriptions of the species, several tiger specimens were described and proposed as subspecies. The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size, hence characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely P. t. tigris in mainland Asia, and P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands.
  Results of craniological analysis of 111 tiger skulls from Southeast Asian range countries indicate that Sumatran tiger skulls differ from Indochinese and Javan tiger skulls, whereas Bali tiger skulls are similar in size to Javan tiger skulls. The authors proposed to classify Sumatran and Javan tiger as distinct species, P. sumatrae and P. sondaica with Bali tiger as subspecies P. sondaica balica.
  In 2015, morphological, ecological, and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies were analysed in a combined approach. Results support distinction of the two evolutionary groups continental and Sunda tigers. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies, namely P. t. tigris comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South Chinese, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and P. t. sondaica comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations. The authors also noted that this reclassification will affect tiger conservation management. The nominate subspecies P. t. tigris constitutes two clades:
  a northern clade composed of the Siberian and Caspian tiger populations
  a southern clade composed of all other mainland populations.
  One conservation specialist welcomed this proposal as it would make captive breeding programmes and future rewilding of zoo-born tigers easier. One geneticist was sceptical of this study and maintained that the currently recognised nine subspecies can be distinguished genetically.
  In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris, and those in the Sunda Islands as P. t. sondaica.
  The following tables are based on the classification of the species Panthera tigris provided in Mammal Species of the World. It also reflects the classification used by the Cat Classification Task Force in 2017:
  A study published in 2018 was based on 32 tiger specimens using the whole-genome sequencing approach for analysis. Results support six monophyletic tiger clades corresponding with the living subspecies and indicate that the most recent common ancestor lived about 110,000 years ago.
caption: Phylogenetic relationship of tiger populations based on Driscoll et al. (2009).[10]
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