How many subspecies of tigers are there? There are nine common sayings, namely Siberian tiger, South China tiger, Indochina tiger, Malay tiger, Java tiger, Sumatra tiger, Bali tiger, Bengal tiger and Lihai tiger. Among them, Northeast Tiger, South China Tiger, Indo-China Tiger, Bengal Tiger and Li Haihu can all appear in China in historical and natural environment. Among the nine subspecies, Java tiger, Bali tiger and Li Haihu are extinct, and the South China tiger, which is considered to be endemic to China, has not appeared in the wild for many years. There are more than 100 captive South China tigers in zoos and breeding bases alone.
There have been no tigers in Shandong for more than one hundred years. According to the living area of tiger subspecies in the past hundred years, the tiger that can haunt Shandong should be South China Tiger. However, there are two big problems to pay attention to. One is how to divide the subspecies of tigers. Second, the distribution of tigers in ancient times was much wider than it is now.
The yellow area in the above figure is the distribution range of tigers before 170, and the green area is the distribution range of tigers before 15. At present, the living ranges of Siberian tiger, Bengal tiger, Malay tiger, Indosinian tiger and Sumatra tiger are basically separated from each other, and it seems that they can be divided into subspecies. In fact, there is no strict standard or quantitative statement on how to define subspecies. What's more, if the time is pushed forward more than 100 years, the distribution ranges of Siberian tiger, Bengal tiger, South China tiger, Indochina tiger and Malay tiger are connected. What was the tiger that appeared in Jingyanggang, Shandong Province nearly 1000 years ago? Are you so sure it's the South China Tiger?
In the past, the classification of tiger subspecies was only based on morphological comparison, looking at the differences of tiger body shape and bone size in different regions, and looking at the differences of coat color and markings. With the development of genetics, the division of nine tiger subspecies has been challenged. A few years ago, some scientists pointed out that tigers can only be divided into two subspecies: mainland tigers and island tigers. Northeast Tiger, South China Tiger, Bengal Tiger, Indian zhina Tiger, Malay Tiger and extinct Lihai Tiger are all mainland tigers, while Sumatra Tiger, Java Tiger and Bali Tiger are island tigers. It is easy to distinguish between the mainland tiger and the island tiger in form, and the island tiger is relatively small. From the genetic point of view, although the first nine subspecies are really different, the two subspecies are easier to distinguish.
Moreover, we still have many questions about the South China Tiger. Wild South China tigers are hard to find. Is the captive South China tiger a pure South China tiger? This really needs a question mark. Domestic captive South China tigers were bred from 6 South China tigers captured in Guizhou and Fujian from 1958 to 1970, of which 5 were from Guizhou. Guizhou is now close to the life range of Indo-Chinese tigers. In 1950s and 1960s, the Indo-Chinese tiger and the South China tiger were also prone to gene exchange. Genetic testing also showed that the captive South China Tiger and Indo-China Tiger had a high genetic relationship. People don't know whether the gene exchange happened naturally or whether the South China tiger and the Indo-China tiger mated by mistake in the zoo.
What kind of tiger did Song Wu kill? At present, the deeper we look at this problem, the more confused we are.