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Where did Tiger
Come From? |
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Tigers (and all other carnivores) are descended from
civet-like animals called Miacids that lived during the age of
the dinosaurs about 60 million years ago. These small
mammals, with long bodies and short flexible
limbs, evolved over millions |
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of years into several hundred different species, including
cats, bears, dogs and weasels.
Approximately 37 cat species exist today, including Panthera tigris, the tiger.Tigers
evolved in eastern Asia. Andrew Kitchener states in the
book The Natural History of Wild Cats. |
"Fossil tigers are known from the Late Pliocene/Early
Pleistocene of southeastern Asia. A small primitive tiger was
living in North China during the Early Pleistocene. Between
1.3 and 2.1 million years ago, tigers were living in
Java...from about two million years ago, tigers spread from
their evolutionary centre in eastern Asia in two directions.
Tigers moving through the Central Asian woodlands to the west
and southwest gave rise to the Caspian tigers. Secondly,
tigers from China moved to the east of the central Asian
mountains to southeastern Asia and the Indonesian islands, and
thence westwards to India (Hemmer, 1987)."
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