Furry facts: The fur of a tiger has stripes identical to its skin
We are sure you have seen a tiger in a zoo, forest reserve or on television. If you have observed the royal creature closely, answer this. Does the tiger have striped fur? Does it have a striped skin and the fur is translucent and the skin just reflects out of the fur? Confused? We will tell you. The fur and skin, both are striped in the case of a tiger. This means that if the fur were shaved off a tiger, the skin underneath would have the same markings that the fur had. Amusing, right?
Why does a tiger have striped fur?
So if the tiger’s skin and fur are striped, how does it help? Well, the stripes serve to help camouflage the tiger when it is hunting its prey. So, when tigers look for their prey, which is usually in the murky light of dusk or dawn, the deep orange coats with dark stripes on their body make them nearly invisible in the surroundings of grasslands, forests or jungles. Their vertical stripes, which range from brown to black blends in with trees and tall grasses.
So does their striped body keep them completely hidden from their prey? Well, to some extent, tigers are also helped by the limited vision of their preferred prey such as deer. Deer and other hoofed animals cannot see the all colours properly. To their eyes, the tiger’s fur isn’t bright orange: it looks green and matches the background. Now that’s interesting!
Unique stripes
Do you know each tiger has over 100 stripes on its body? Also, these stripes are unique to each tiger, just like we humans have unique fingerprints. So, if the police can catch a thief by its fingerprints on the crime scene, how does it help tigers to have unique stripes?
Well, the unique coat is extremely beneficial to identify and count the tigers in the wild. The researchers, for example in a forest reserve can name the different tigers according to their unique stripes and can find out the whereabouts of each one of them by using remote cameras placed at various locations. The cameras take pictures of the large cats when they walk by. Wildlife researchers do a census every four years to count the tiger population in India using the above method. According to their last estimates, only 2,967 tigers remain in India.
Tiger subspecies
What is even more amusing is that the pattern of the stripes varies among the different tiger subspecies according to their needs. There are six tiger subspecies and all of them have a different pattern of stripes. For example, the Sumatran tiger subspecies have much narrower stripes than others and therefore they are more in number. The evolution of this sort helps them stay hidden in their dense jungle home.
White and black tigers
But if tigers evolved with stripes to help them stay hidden in the forest, what about the white tigers? Doesn’t their white fur make them stand out?
Well, yes you are right! It does make it easy to spot them and they have a hard time catching their meals.
But actually, their white colour is a result of a genetic mutation and therefore they are very few. Let us tell you how they become white. In the Bengal tigers, if both parents have the same very rare gene, they produce cubs with milky white fur. And since it doesn’t happen too often, white tigers are bred to relatives in captivity to attract tourists — and inbreeding produces unhealthy babies. And that is the reason, they are very few. The same goes for the black tiger.
Fur is not all good!
So if you thought that to be endowed with such beautiful majestic striped fur is all good, you are wrong. These large cats are hunted for their beautiful pelts since they fetch very good prices. The fur is used to make pricey shoes, belts, handbags, coats, dresses, etc. and sold in high-end boutiques.