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Tiger in Iran ISSN 1027-2992 I Special Issue I N° 10 | Autumn 2016 CatsCAT in Iran news 02 CATnews is the newsletter of the Cat Specialist Group, a component Editors: Christine & Urs Breitenmoser of the Species Survival Commission SSC of the International Union Co-chairs IUCN/SSC for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is published twice a year, and is Cat Specialist Group available to members and the Friends of the Cat Group. KORA, Thunstrasse 31, 3074 Muri, Switzerland For joining the Friends of the Cat Group please contact Tel ++41(31) 951 90 20 Christine Breitenmoser at [email protected] Fax ++41(31) 951 90 40 <[email protected]> Original contributions and short notes about wild cats are welcome Send <[email protected]> contributions and observations to [email protected]. Guidelines for authors are available at www.catsg.org/catnews Cover Photo: From top left to bottom right: Caspian tiger (K. Rudloff) This Special Issue of CATnews has been produced with support Asiatic lion (P. Meier) from the Wild Cat Club and Zoo Leipzig. Asiatic cheetah (ICS/DoE/CACP/ Panthera) Design: barbara surber, werk’sdesign gmbh caracal (M. Eslami Dehkordi) Layout: Christine Breitenmoser & Tabea Lanz Eurasian lynx (F. Heidari) Print: Stämpfli Publikationen AG, Bern, Switzerland Pallas’s cat (F. Esfandiari) Persian leopard (S. B. Mousavi) ISSN 1027-2992 © IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group Asiatic wildcat (S. B. Mousavi) sand cat (M. R. Besmeli) jungle cat (B. Farahanchi) The designation of the geographical entities in this publication, and the representation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. CATnews Special Issue 10 Autumn 2016 Faizolahi KAVEH FAIZOLAHI1 cies by only six and five mitochondrial steps respectively. Caspian tiger haplotype differs Tiger in Iran - historical distri- only by a single step from Amur tiger and the Caspian tiger was genetically more di- bution, extinction causes and verse than the almost identical Amur tiger. All Amur tigers share a haplotype that is feasibility of reintroduction derived from that of the main Caspian hap- lotype (Driscoll et al. 2009). A historical range for the extirpated Caspian tiger Panthera tigris virgata in Iran, and It is suggested that P. t. virgata (Illiger, 1815) close to Iran border in adjacent countries, is constructed based on records extracted and P. t. altaica Temminck, 1844 should taxo- from scientific literature as well as from travel journals from 17th century to first half nomically be considered as a single subspe- of the 20th century. The records were classified into three categories of reliability, cies, as they comply with the three criteria depending on the accuracy of identification and the precision of locality. The his- of subspecific taxonomic designation: 1) a torical range is potentially open to re-introduction, and as new molecular research distinct and united geographic distribution established, Amur tiger could be used as a stock to repopulate tiger in its former throughout a continuous range, 2) a unique range from Central Asia to the Caucasus. However, Caspian tiger habitats in Iran natural history, and 3) largely concordant have changed dramatically in the last century, and the main causes of its extinction phylogenetic characters (O’Brien & Mayr are now at least as effective as before. If any potentially suitable habitat appears in 1991, Driscoll et al. 2009). The Caspian tiger feasibility studies, a long phase of preparation, beneficial to all wildlife, is needed and Amur tiger may have a recent common before reintroducing tiger to land it disappeared from more than half a century ago. ancestry and may thus be considered as syn- onymous under the prior P. t. virgata trinomi- The Caspian or Hyrcanian tiger is a usual was recently described from Malaysia (Luo et al. There is even a suggestion to consider all member of many lists comprised of the most al. 2004). The Iranian population of tiger be- continental tigers as one subspecies (Wilting recent mammalian extinctions, including spe- longed to the extinct subspecies P. t. virgata et al. 2015), mainly with the intention to fa- cies and subspecies such as Tasmanian wolf (Illiger, 1815). Its type locality is Mazandaran, cilitate tiger conservation management. Thylacinus cynocephalus, aurochs Bos primi- northern Iran (delimited by Harper 1940). No As Hemmer (1987) put it: “Tigers have phy- genius, quagga Equus quagga quagga, Atlas holotype specimen of P. t. virgata exists. Other logenetically developed population differ- bear Ursus arctos crowtheri, etc. The Caspian common names for this subspecies include ences, but man has developed the concept 05 tiger once roamed across a wide range in Hyrcanian tiger, Turan tiger, Persian tiger, Cen- of subspecific taxonomy. Thus, conservation northern Asia and was finally wiped out from tral Asian tiger, Turkestan tiger, Transoxiana strategies must not rely primarily on such northern Iran nearly half a century ago. tiger, Occidental tiger and Mazandaran tiger. man-made concepts, but on nature’s exist- This is a literature review with the aim of de- On one hand, some authors believe that the ing population”. termining the distribution and causes for the usual taxonomic lumping of all middle Asian decline and disappearance of the Caspian tigers under the P. t. virgata subspecies may Phylogeography tiger. I then looked at new molecular data mask a great differentiation in co-adapted The Caspian tiger’s uncertain biogeographical which prove that the virgata (Caspian) and gene complexes between regional popula- origin and phylogenetic placement in the tiger altaica (Amur) subspecies are taxonomically tions (Hemmer 1987); on the other hand, new family tree has puzzled naturalists for over a synonymous. Using these findings, I discuss molecular results show that recognising P. t. century (Macdonald et al. 2010). Heptner & the feasibility of tiger reintroduction within virgata at a subspecific level may be not justi- Sludskii (1992) proposed that tigers colonised its former Iranian range using Amur tigers, fied. It has however been demonstrated that this area from north-west India and Hemmer Panthera tigris altaica. intraspecific variation of tiger is largely clinal (1987) like Mazák (1981) suggested a route and conforms more or less with ecogeograph- from north-east Asia via central Asia. Driscoll Taxonomy ic rules such as Bergmann’s (Kitchener 1999). et al. (2009) deduced that tiger expanded in Traditionally there have been eight recog- By applying ancient DNA techniques to northern Asia through the Silk Road (Gansu nised subspecies of P. tigris (Mazák 1981), museum specimens, Driscoll et al. (2009) corridor) from eastern China, between the of which three are now considered extinct showed that the Amur and Caspian tigers Himalayan Plateau and the Mongolian Gobi (Nowell & Jackson 1996, Jackson & Nowell are sister taxa to the Indochinese tiger, P. t. desert, first towards west into Central Asia 2008) and a new subspecies, P. t. jacksoni, corbetti, being separated from that subspe- up to Anatolia, and then eastwards into the Russian Far East. Tiger expansion into Central Table 1. Size and cranial characters of Caspian tigers (Ognev 1962. Mazák 1981, Heptner Asia is very recent (Holocene) and Caspian ti- & Sludskii 1992). ger geographical variation dates back to less Males Females than 10,000 years ago. Total length 270-295 cm 240-260 cm Caspian tiger may have been the most iso- Tail length 90-110 cm lated of all mainland tiger subspecies during Weight 170-240 kg 85-135 kg the stadials of the Pleistocene, “(they) were Skull length 316-369 mm 268-305 mm doubtless excluded from India by the Hindu Condylobasal length 259-308 mm 225-263 mm Koosh and the desert areas of Persia and Bal- Zygomatic width 219-254 mm 183-203 mm uchistan” (Pocock 1929). Vereshchagin (1967) Cats in Iran Caspian tiger considers it a postglacial immigrant due to was striking in Caspian tiger, where males Pocock (1929), however, points to a great vari- lack of fossil remains in the Caucasus. In- were almost two times heavier than females ation in British Museum specimens, with two deed, the nearly continuous range of the tiger (Mázak 1981; Table 1). of four Caspian tiger pelts having quite black in northern Asia (except a gap around 100˚ E) Sagittal and temporal crests, especially in stripes just as in the Indian tigers. The other is clearly evident in older maps (Mazák 1965). large males are very strong and prominent two are partly and wholly brown. “There is evidence that the tigers of the Per- (Mazak 1981). The occiput is very broad (Po- There are two Caspian tiger skins with du- so-Turkestan district are, or were, continuous cock 1929), as in Amur tigers, “which may bious origin (most probably from Golestan in their distribution with those of Mongolia” indicate a close relationship between these area) in Iran Biodiversity Museum (Fig. 1) (Pocock 1929). Ellerman & Morrison-Scott populations” (Kitchener 1999). and Darabad Museum of Nature and Wild- (1951), report a historical distribution in the Though the Caspian tiger was in average life (Fig. 1), both in Tehran. They seem to Ob basin and the Altai Mountains. The his- smaller than the Amur tiger, the largest indi- conform to other descriptions of Caspian torical distribution of Amur and Caspian ti- vidual, killed on the Sumbar in Kopet-Dag on tiger pelage, as their ground colour is not so gers extended from Anatolia to the Russian 10 January, 1954 (stuffed skin in Ashkhabad pale, with a red ochre hue. Far East and this range became discontinu- Museum), with a greatest skull length of Seasonal coat colour and length dimorphism ous within the last 200 years, probably due 385 mm (Heptner & Sludskii 1992), exceeds was prominent: the winter coat was consid- to anthropogenic factors (Driscoll et al.
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