FACTS ABOUT BENGAL TIGER

The Bengal tigers are well-known for their attractive physical appearance. Its back has beautiful black, gray or brown colored vertical stripes, over a base color of reddish orange. The underside portion of their body and the inner side of the limbs and tail have a creamy white color. As they prefer to hunt in the dark, the stripes on their body often help them to hide in the shadows of wild grass.

On an average. the size of a male Bengal tiger is about 3 meters or 10 feet, and weighs about 500 pounds. The body of a female species is about 9 feet and weighs 300 pounds. So far, the largest recorded size of a Bengal tiger is 857 pounds.

Those Bengal tigers which are living in wild forests have an average lifespan of 15 years. On the other hand, when it is living in a captivated environment, it is likely to survive for a slightly longer period of time which could be up to 16 to 18 years.

Bengal tigers hunt down wild animals like pigs, deer, antelopes, buffalo of medium to large size, to get their food. In one feeding, a Bengal tiger can eat almost 70 pounds of meat! They love to spend a lot of time in water. So, they often have this tendency to chase their prey into the water and eat it there.

Basically, the Royal Bengal tigers are solitary creatures and love to live alone. They usually carry out activities like hunting and feeding on their own. They mark large areas of the forest as their territories with droppings, urine and scratch marks of claws, to keep away other rival hunting tigers. They are seen with another tigers only during the time of mating.

A female Bengal tiger gets sexual maturity at the age of 3 to 4 years, whereas the males get it when they are 4-5 years old. The gestation period of these tigers are just 98 to 110 days or roughly 3 months. The female tiger gives birth to 2 to 4 cubs at a time. Interestingly, these cubs are blind at the time of birth. The cubs start hunting at the age of around 18 months.