The tiger is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ungulates, such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat to support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years and then become independent, leaving their mother's home range to establish their own.
Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae that was named and described by Lorenz Oken in 1816 who placed all the spotted cats in this group. Reginald Innes Pocock revised the classification of this genus in 1916 as comprising the tiger, lion, jaguar, and leopard on the basis of common features of their skulls. Results of genetic analysis indicate that the snow leopard also belongs to the genus Panthera, a classification that was accepted by IUCN Red List assessors in 2008.
Solo Man is a subspecies of H. erectus that lived along the Solo River in Java, Indonesia, about 117,000 to 108,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene. This population is the last known record of the species. It is known from 14 skullcaps, two tibiae, and a piece of the pelvis excavated near the village of Ngandong, and possibly three skulls from Sambungmacan and a skull from Ngawi depending on classification. The Ngandong site was first excavated from 1931 to 1933 under the direction of Willem Frederik Florus Oppenoorth, Carel ter Haar, and Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, but further study was set back by the Great Depression, World War II and the Indonesian War of Independence. In accordance with historical race concepts, Indonesian H. erectus subspecies were originally classified as the direct ancestors of Aboriginal Australians, but Solo Man is now thought to have no living descendants because the remains far predate modern human immigration into the area, which began roughly 55,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Java Man is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java. Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossil ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus.
Panthera spelaea, also known as the cave lion or steppe lion, is an extinct Panthera species that most likely evolved in Europe after the third Cromerian interglacial stage, less than 600,000 years ago. Genetic analysis of ancient DNA has revealed that while closely related, it was a distinct species genetically isolated from the modern lion occurring in Africa and Asia, with the genetic divergence between the two species variously estimated between 1.9 million and 600,000 years ago. It is closely related and probably ancestral to the American lion. The species ranged from Western Europe to eastern Beringia in North America, and was a prominent member of the mammoth steppe fauna. It became extinct about 13,000 years ago.
Panthera atrox, better known as the American lion, also called the North American lion, or American cave lion, is an extinct pantherine cat. Panthera atrox lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch, from around 340,000 to 12,800 years ago. The species was initially described by American paleontologist Joseph Leidy in 1853 based on a fragmentary mandible (jawbone) from Mississippi; the species name ('atrox') means "savage" or "cruel". The status of the species is debated, with some mammalogists and paleontologists considering it a distinct species or a subspecies of Panthera leo, which contains living lions. However, novel genetic evidence has shown that it is instead a distinct species derived from the Eurasian cave or steppe lion, evolving after its geographic isolation in North America. Its fossils have been excavated from Alaska to Mexico. It was about 25% larger than the modern lion, making it one of the largest known felids.
The Caspian tiger was a Panthera tigris tigris population native to eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus around the Caspian Sea, Central Asia to northern Afghanistan and the Xinjiang region in western China. Until the Middle Ages, it was also present in southern Russia. It inhabited sparse forests and riverine corridors in this region until the 1970s. This population was regarded as a distinct subspecies and assessed as extinct in 2003.
The Javan tiger was a Panthera tigris sondaica population native to the Indonesian island of Java until the mid-1970s. It was hunted to extinction, and its natural habitat converted for agricultural land use and infrastructure. It was one of the three tiger populations in the Sunda Islands.
The Bali tiger was a Panthera tigris sondaica population on the Indonesian island of Bali which has been extinct since the 1950s.
The Pantherinae is a subfamily of the Felidae; it was named and first described by Reginald Innes Pocock in 1917 as only including the Panthera species. The Pantherinae genetically diverged from a common ancestor between 9.32 to 4.47 million years ago and 10.67 to 3.76 million years ago.
Panthera gombaszoegensis, also known as the European jaguar, is a Panthera species that lived from about 2.0 to 0.35 million years ago in Europe. The first fossils were excavated in 1938 in Gombasek, Slovakia.
Panthera fossilis, is an extinct species of cat belonging to the genus Panthera, known from remains found in Eurasia spanning the Middle Pleistocene and possibly into the Early Pleistocene. P. fossilis has sometimes been referred to by the common names steppe lion or cave lion, though these names are conventionally restricted to the later related species P. spelaea, to which P. fossilis is probably ancestral.
The Sunda Island tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Sunda Islands in Indonesia. The name refers to the:
Panthera tigris acutidens or Wanhsien tiger is an extinct tiger subspecies, which was scientifically described in 1928 based on fossils excavated near Wanhsien in southern China's Sichuan Province. Otto Zdansky named it Felis acutidens. After the fossils were re-examined in 1947, they were attributed to Panthera tigris acutidens by Dirk Albert Hooijer and Walter W. Granger.
Panthera tigris soloensis, known as the Ngandong tiger, is an extinct subspecies of the modern tiger species. It inhabited the Sundaland region of Indonesia during the Pleistocene epoch.
Hemimachairodus is an extinct genus of machairodontine (sabre-toothed) cat with only one species, Hemimachairodus zwierzyckii, known from fossils from the Pleistocene of Java.
Duboisia santeng or Dubois' antelope is an extinct antelope-like bovid that was endemic to Indonesia during the Pleistocene. It went extinct during the Ionian stage of the Pleistocene, about 750.000 years ago. Duboisia santeng was first described by the Dutch paleoanthropologist and geologist Eugène Dubois in 1891.
Mececyon trinilensis, the Trinil dog, is an extinct canid species that lived on the island of Java in Indonesia during the Pleistocene.
The Bornean tiger or Borneo tiger is possibly an extinct tiger population that lived on the island of Borneo in prehistoric times. A live Bornean tiger has not been conclusively recorded, but the indigenous Dayak people believe in its existence, and occasionally report sightings.
Gavialis bengawanicus is an extinct species of crocodilian that is related to the modern Indian gharial. Fossils have been found in Thailand and Indonesia. The type locality is at Trinil.
