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Tigers in Nepal

Bengal tiger
Contented 01.jpg
Male in Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, India
Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) female.jpg
Female, about 2½ years old, at Kanha
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Genus: Panthera
Species: P. tigris
Subspecies: P. t. tigris
Trinomial name
Panthera tigris tigris
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Panthera tigris tigris and Panthera tigris corbetti distribution map.png
Range of Bengal tiger in red
Synonyms
  • P. t. fluviatilis
  • P. t. montanus
  • P. t. regalis
  • P. t. striatus

The Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is the most numerous tiger subspecies in Asia, and was estimated at fewer than 2,500 individuals by 2011. Since 2008, it is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is threatened by poaching, loss and fragmentation of habitat. None of the Tiger Conservation Landscapes within its range is considered large enough to support an effective population of more than 250 adult individuals.

The tiger arrived in the Indian subcontinent about 12,000 years ago.India's tiger population was estimated at 1,706–1,909 individuals in 2010. By 2014, the population had reputedly increased to an estimated 2,226 individuals. Around 440 tigers are estimated in Bangladesh, 163–253 tigers in Nepal and 103 tigers in Bhutan.

The Bengal tiger ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is therefore considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna. It is the national animal of both India and Bangladesh.

The Bengal is the traditional type locality for the binomen Panthera tigris, to which the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the Bengal tiger in 1929 under the trinomen Panthera tigris tigris.

The validity of several tiger subspecies in continental Asia was questioned in 1999. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the . Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two subspecies as valid, namely P. t. tigris in mainland Asia, and P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands and possibly in Sundaland. In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and now recognizes the extinct and living tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris.


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