Tigers have no fixed estrus. When it comes to tigers, everyone's first impression is fierce, but the beast also has a gentle moment, and that is to decide to follow? Want to have children? Start counting. Of course. This? Warm? This is just between him and his cubs. When dealing with other animals or humans, the mother tiger with her cubs is often more fierce, which is actually easy to understand, because the mother tiger is very afraid that her cubs will be hurt.
This phenomenon also exists in domestic cats and dogs. For example, cats and dogs with puppies are much more fierce than usual, and even worry about the approach of their owners. Things didn't get better until the puppy and kitten were a little older.
Most animals have a fixed estrus, such as wildebeest in summer and elk in late May every year, but tigers don't seem to have a fixed estrus. Their mating behavior may occur at any time of the year, and they enter estrus every 3-9 weeks on average, but most of the time occurs between 165438+ 10 and April every year. study found
In addition, according to the environment and climate of the area where tigers live, there will be slight differences. For example, most tigers living in temperate regions choose to mate in winter.
It is not only environmental factors that affect the estrus of tigers, but also cubs. After the tiger is pregnant, it will not enter estrus until the cubs grow up and leave. In the meantime, it will only play the role of mother with peace of mind. However, if all the cubs in a fetus die for some reason, the tigress will soon re-enter estrus and have a great chance of giving birth to a new baby within five months.
Its gestation period is 16 weeks, which is about 3.5 months, because tigers are not like animals such as black-backed wolves. At this stage of pregnancy and childbirth, males will take care of them and ignore them after mating. Everything depends on the tigress herself, but because she can't hunt in the late pregnancy, the tigress must be pregnant for a short time to survive.
Tigers are unsociable animals, and adult tigers are almost unconnected except in estrus. In estrus, the female tiger will mark her territory with urine, leaving a unique smell, which is different from the smell of the previously marked territory and seems to be sending a message to the male tiger. I am in estrus. Come and see me. .
When the male tiger smells this smell, he will look for the female tiger in the area. On the other hand, when the female tiger finds that the male tiger has entered the territory, she will roar frequently, and the two sides will achieve the purpose of communication.
After a short courtship ceremony, the male tiger will mate with the female tiger. In the next 5-6 days, they will mate several times until the estrus of the female tiger is over, and the male tiger will leave after conception.
Of course, it was not so much that the male tiger left as that the female tiger drove him away. In the courtship stage, the tigress's attitude towards the male tiger was very ambiguous, but after she finished her pregnancy, the tigress's attitude changed 180 degrees and became much more fierce. Be nice. Very resistant, and at this point, the male tiger understood and left in a friendly way.
Raising offspring, from the beginning of settling down, many people will ask, after the mother tiger is pregnant, the male tiger ignores it, so how do they hunt? After all, tigers are a species that need to eat constantly to maintain their body energy.
We don't have to worry about this at all. In monogamous animals such as black-backed wolves, when females can't hunt, males will go out to hunt, then recapture their prey or feed them back. Although the tigress is not cared for by the male tiger, the tiger's pregnancy is very short, about three and a half months.
Wild animals are different from humans, who are inconvenient to move in the early stage of pregnancy, but most wild animals still have high mobility when they are about to give birth. The tiger is not obvious in the early and middle stages of pregnancy, and even the naked eye can't see whether it is pregnant. At this point, the tigress is fully capable of preying on her prey.
In the last 10- 12 days of production, its belly gradually bulged, revealing its pregnancy. At this time, the tigress can still hunt. In the worst case, she can pick up the remains or carrion left by other meat eaters. Until 3-5 days after giving birth, the mother tiger can't hunt and the whole tiger can't eat for several days.
Tigers have no nest and can rest anywhere, but in the last few days of pregnancy, the tigress will find a safe place to give birth. This place should be safe and sheltered enough, and there should be enough prey nearby, so that the cubs can have enough food after birth, or the tigress doesn't have to go too far away from home to hunt.
This place is often some rock crevices, caves, dense grass, and even depressions of big trees. Some grass or branches are used as cushions, and the whole nest is so simple that it is not even a nest.
The tiger's simple nest
At this stage, the tigress will be quite alert, and a little trouble can arouse her vigilance, because at this time, she and her cubs are in the weakest stage.
Insecurity seems to be a common problem for mothers, even lions who live in groups are no exception. A few days before giving birth, the lioness will leave her lion and find a safe place to give birth to her cubs. When the cubs can go out with the lioness, they will be brought back to the lion. Before that, the lioness will not allow any animals to get close to her cubs, even other lionesses in a group of lions.
Lioness and cub
An industrious tigress can give birth to seven cubs at most, but only three cubs on average. After the baby is born, the eyes are invisible and will not open until 6- 12 days later. From birth to complete independence, the cubs are very dependent on the tiger mother, especially at this stage of birth, which can be said to be completely dependent on the tiger mother.
The tigress is very cautious when taking care of her cubs. If she thinks the shelter is unsafe, she will move immediately without hesitation. The tigress holds the tiger cub in the same way as the cat, biting the tiger cub's neck with her teeth and picking it up.
A tigress with her cubs.
In the first few days after the cubs are born, they can only drink milk, so the mother tiger spends nearly 70% of her time taking care of them every day, and this time will not be reduced to 30% until a month later. But tigers don't live alone in cats, do they? The best? Yes, the puma is more terrible than it? Spoil? Son, it takes 82% time.
The female tiger needs a lot of nutrition during lactation, and it must be increased by about 50% to keep enough milk. Therefore, at this stage, the tigress will hunt frequently, which is why she chooses her nest in an area with many prey.
For example, in Wang Chi National Park, a tigress was observed nursing her cubs. She hunted a large prey every 5-6 days, but before she got pregnant, she hunted a large prey every 8 days. How careful will mother tiger be when she takes care of her cubs?
It has even been observed that it will eat the feces of young tigers to protect their smell from other potential predators. Moreover, when the mother tiger is with her cubs, she often licks their cubs' bodies to make them healthier and help them defecate.
By 6-8 weeks, the young tiger began to eat solid food, but at this stage, the young tiger had no predation ability, and all the food it ate was obtained by the mother tiger. After 8 weeks, the cubs have been able to leave the nest and explore the outside world. At this stage, the mother tiger will take her cubs with her, and her activities are limited to the vicinity of the nest. Once she senses danger, the mother tiger will quickly take her cubs back to the nest.
Regardless of the mother tiger, feeding her offspring is her own business. If the male tiger doesn't participate, even if she meets the cubs, she will have a great chance to kill them, because as mentioned above, if all the cubs in a fetus die, the female tiger will quickly enter the next estrus, which means that the male tiger can mate with them again.
This phenomenon is particularly obvious in the world of lions. When a new lion challenges and successfully enters the pride, it will immediately remove the original cubs in the pride, so that the females in the pride can quickly enter estrus, thus leaving their offspring.
The lion killed the cub.
If the male lion sometimes helps the female lion catch prey and gives the male lions a sense of security, then is the male tiger really? The last piece of slag? Now, after mating with the mother tiger, the male tiger will not take any responsibility during the whole feeding period, and even bite the young tiger to death after meeting them.
In nature, the mortality rate of tiger cubs is very high, only half of them can survive in the first two years, which is largely caused by male tigers, who will attack tiger cubs when the mother tiger leaves, and other reasons include lack of food or being killed by other animals, such as leopards and bears.
The male tiger kills the young tiger.
Every nest has a dominant individual, and in every fetus, there will be one named? Dominant individuals? Our cubs are usually strong Xiao Xiong tigers. In a few cases, they may be young females. This dominant individual is like the big brother among the cubs, and all the cubs obey its management.
If the tigress is absent, it will take the place of the tigress and instruct other cubs when to sleep, play, eat and so on. This rule continues until they can live independently from the tigress. When establishing a hierarchical order among 6-month-old cubs, this dominant individual is often the highest level and enjoys more food and other resources.
The dominant individual gets not only the inclination of resources, but sometimes even life. When the surrounding environment changes and food is in short supply, the mother tiger will give it more food to ensure that the young tiger can survive. If the situation changes and the mother tiger can only save one cub, then she will choose this dominant individual because she is stronger than other cubs, which means that she has a higher chance of survival in the cruel competition behind. In fact, this is not a cruel tiger mother, but the law of survival of the fittest in nature.
The tigress is a little tiger born two months after her most important teacher was born. When she was most active and interested in external things, she couldn't wait to get out of her nest and explore the outside world. At this stage, the tigress will teach her cubs various survival skills, such as fighting and predation. The tigress will consolidate the skills taught by the tigress through daily playful activities such as chasing and biting each other.
In the initial stage, the cubs will watch their mother hunt from a distance. Only after killing the prey will they run to eat together. In the following days, they will continue to imitate the mother tiger and practice again and again.
When the young tiger grows up, the mother tiger will catch the prey, but only bite and not kill it, and then let the young tiger finish the final killing. After repeated practice, the hunting level of young tigers is getting higher and higher. When it 18 months old, this young tiger has grown into a quite skilled hunter.
At this stage, although the cubs have the initial ability to live independently, they will not be in a hurry to leave the mother tiger at this time, but will continue to live together for a period of time, about 4-5 months. At this stage, the mother tiger and the young tiger will hunt together and live in groups for a short time.
Growing up means that the cubs leave at 24-30 months. At this point, the cubs have fully grown up, and they will choose to leave the mother tiger and live alone, while the mother tiger will not leave immediately after the cubs leave? Want a second child? Instead, they will be more inclined to wait 10-24 months before entering the new breeding season.
In the choice of habitat, the mother tiger will choose the area close to the mother tiger, and some even surround the mother tiger directly, while the male tiger will go further to create his own territory. The male tiger's territory will include the territory of 2-5 females, but the tiger's territory will not overlap. In some high-density areas, there may be no new sites, so there will be fights between males and tigers.
Two tigers are fighting.
Chajil, the most famous male tiger, is a Bengal tiger who lives in Bandaga National Park in India. He is very brave and good at fighting. He won several male tigers in his heyday, and finally his territory covered the whole park and became the legendary tiger king. The male tiger is farther away than the female tiger. Is this the way for tiger species to avoid inbreeding? Such a general answer obviously cannot dispel people's doubts. In fact, the male tiger will go further after independence, which is related to his personality.
Tiger King Chagall
Male tigers are naturally more adventurous than female tigers, which can be seen in young tigers. Generally, the first cub to leave the nest is usually the male tiger, and then the female tiger? More worrying? Most of the cubs are males, which is why the survival rate of male cubs is lower than that of females.
As for the departure of Xionghu, as most articles on the Internet say, he won't go further after independence. They left the tigress at the age of 2-3, but before the age of 5, they only lived independently on the edge of the tigress's territory, because at this stage, they continued to grow and develop muscles. After the age of 5, the male tiger became strong enough to establish his own territory in the distance.