--- title: "Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) | AnimalTracks.wiki" description: "Longest canines of any big cat, stripes as unique as a fingerprint, and the only tigers at home in mangroves." image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/bengal-tiger-1.webp" published: "2026-09-01" updated: "2026-09-23" --- # Bengal Tiger (*Panthera tigris tigris*) > **Status**: Checked against 9 sources, listed under Sources below. > **Tagline**: Longest canines of any big cat, stripes as unique as a fingerprint, and the only tigers at home in mangroves. > **Soundtrack Vibe**: Drum & Bass / Spatial Jungle // Nia Archives, "Forbidden Feelingz" > **Soundtrack Links**: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/6c21bVRfGC8IOXvQVQ2UTb) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjCVcVw8f1Y) > **Vibe Match**: Rolling jungle breakbeats under a big, clear vocal, for a cat whose flat, square vocal folds turn less lung pressure into a louder roar: up to about 114 decibels from a few feet away. ## Biological Superpowers & Stats - **Taxonomy**: *Panthera tigris tigris* - **Danger Level**: Deadly - **Conservation Status**: Endangered ([IUCN Red List](https://www.iucnredlist.org/)) - **Superpower**: A single bound can cover up to 10 meters, and flat, square vocal folds push its roar to 114 decibels. - **Habitat**: Tropical and evergreen forests, mangrove swamps (the Sundarbans), and grasslands across India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan - **Diet**: Chital deer, sambar, wild boar, gaur, and water buffalo, stalked and ambushed - **Tags**: big-cat, savanna, rainforest, wetlands, apex-predator, super-speed ## Natural History & Behavior ## Ten-Centimeter Fangs and a Two-Bite Playbook A Bengal tiger's canines run 7.5 to 10 centimeters long, the longest of any living big cat. It has two ways to use them, and the size of the meal decides which. Prey weighing less than half as much as the tiger gets a bite to the back of the neck: the canines slide between two neck vertebrae, force them apart and break the spinal cord. Bigger prey gets a bite to the throat that crushes its windpipe until it suffocates. The throat bite is the safer move, because it limits the blows the tiger takes while it makes the kill. Even with that toolkit, only one attack in ten or twenty ends in a meal. ## 180 to 258 Kilograms of Cat An adult male measures 270 to 310 centimeters from nose to tail tip and weighs 180 to 258 kilograms. Females are smaller: 240 to 265 centimeters and 100 to 160 kilograms. Tigers are among the largest cats in the world, but the Bengal is not the biggest tiger. That title goes to the Amur tiger, whose males reach up to 300 kilograms. A wild Bengal tiger typically lives 8 to 10 years. In a zoo, that stretches to 16 to 18. > **No two tigers share a stripe pattern** Like a human fingerprint, every tiger's markings are its own, so researchers studying wild tigers can tell individuals apart by their stripes. ## A Roar Shaped by Vocal Cord Geometry Most species have triangular vocal folds. A tiger's, like a lion's, are flat and square, and fat inside each fold helps give them that shape. Square folds respond more easily to the air rushing past them, so a tiger gets a louder roar out of less lung pressure: up to about 114 decibels from a few feet away, around 25 times as loud as a gas lawn mower. Tigers roar to challenge rivals at long range, defend a meal or attract a mate. Their other calls include grunts, hisses and chuffs, a friendly greeting usually shared between a mother and her cubs. ## Life in the Tidal Mangroves Bengal tigers live in forest, mangrove swamp and grassland. Most of them are in India, with smaller populations in Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. One population lives somewhere no other tiger does: the Sundarbans, about 10,000 square kilometers of mangrove forest in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta of Bangladesh and India, cut through by narrow creeks. These are the only tigers adapted to life in mangroves, and their DNA shows they split from other Bengal tigers around 26,000 years ago. Getting around there means getting wet, which is no problem: tigers are excellent swimmers and can easily cross rivers 6 to 8 kilometers wide. The IUCN lists the tiger as Endangered. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How powerful is a Bengal tiger's roar? A tiger's roar can reach about 114 decibels from a few feet away, about 25 times as loud as a gas lawn mower. A 2011 study of vocal folds from lions and tigers, including a Bengal tigress, found the folds are flat and square rather than triangular, and fat inside them helps give them that shape. The square shape responds more easily to passing air, so a tiger gets a louder roar out of less lung pressure. *(Source: [EurekAlert! (University of Utah) 2011]())* ### Do Bengal tigers really live in mangrove swamps? Yes. The tigers of the Sundarbans mangrove forest are the only tiger population adapted to living in mangroves. A 2022 study of their mitochondrial DNA, which passes from mother to cub, found they split from other Bengal tigers around 26,000 years ago. One of the three DNA types it found in them has turned up in no other tiger population, and the authors recommend managing them as a separate unit for conservation. *(Source: [Aziz et al. 2022]())* ### Does a tiger have a stronger bite than a lion? Not exactly. A 2005 study that estimated bite force from the skulls of 39 living and fossil mammal predators put a tiger's canine bite at about 1,525 newtons, weaker than a lion's 1,768 newtons. Adjust for body size, though, and the tiger comes out ahead: its bite force quotient of 127 beats the lion's 112, so it bites harder for its weight. *(Source: [Wroe, McHenry & Thomason 2005]())* ## Sources 1. [Klemuk et al. (2011). Adapted to Roar: Functional Morphology of Tiger and Lion Vocal Folds. PLoS ONE.]() 2. [Born to Roar: Vocal Cord Shape Explains Loud, Low Pitch of Big Cats. EurekAlert! (University of Utah), 2011.]() 3. [Wroe, McHenry & Thomason (2005). Bite club: comparative bite force in big biting mammals and the prediction of predatory behaviour in fossil taxa. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.]() 4. [Panthera tigris (tiger). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan.]() 5. [Bengal Tiger. SACON ENVIS Resource Partner on Wetland Ecosystems, 2019.]() 6. [Tiger. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.]() 7. [Tiger. Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.]() 8. [Khan & Chivers (2007). Habitat preferences of tigers Panthera tigris in the Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh, and management recommendations. Oryx.]() 9. [Aziz et al. (2022). Phylogeography of Panthera tigris in the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans. Endangered Species Research.]() *Published September 1, 2026. Last updated September 23, 2026.* ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Article", "@id": "https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/bengal-tiger/#article", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://animaltracks.wiki/#website" }, "headline": "Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) | AnimalTracks.wiki", "description": "Longest canines of any big cat, stripes as unique as a fingerprint, and the only tigers at home in mangroves.", "image": [ "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/bengal-tiger-1.webp" ], "datePublished": "2026-09-01", "dateModified": "2026-09-23", "author": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "AnimalTracks.wiki Editorial Team", "url": "https://animaltracks.wiki" } ], "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://animaltracks.wiki/#organization", "name": "AnimalTracks.wiki", "url": "https://animaltracks.wiki", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://animaltracks.wiki/icon-512.png" } }, "mainEntityOfPage": "https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/bengal-tiger/", "citation": [ { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "name": "Adapted to Roar: Functional Morphology of Tiger and Lion Vocal Folds", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027029", "author": "Klemuk et al.", "datePublished": "2011", "isPartOf": { "@type": "Periodical", "name": "PLoS ONE" }, "identifier": "doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027029" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Born to Roar: Vocal Cord Shape Explains Loud, Low Pitch of Big Cats", "url": "https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/535717", "datePublished": "2011", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "EurekAlert! (University of Utah)" } }, { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "name": "Bite club: comparative bite force in big biting mammals and the prediction of predatory behaviour in fossil taxa", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2986", "author": "Wroe, McHenry & Thomason", "datePublished": "2005", "isPartOf": { "@type": "Periodical", "name": "Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences" }, "identifier": "doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2986" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Panthera tigris (tiger)", "url": "https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Panthera_tigris/", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan" } }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Bengal Tiger", "url": "https://www.sacon.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/bengal-tiger.pdf", "datePublished": "2019", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "SACON ENVIS Resource Partner on Wetland Ecosystems" } }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Tiger", "url": "https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/tiger", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance" } }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Tiger", "url": "https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/tiger", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute" } }, { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "name": "Habitat preferences of tigers Panthera tigris in the Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary, Bangladesh, and management recommendations", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605307012094", "author": "Khan & Chivers", "datePublished": "2007", "isPartOf": { "@type": "Periodical", "name": "Oryx" }, "identifier": "doi:10.1017/S0030605307012094" }, { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "name": "Phylogeography of Panthera tigris in the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans", "url": "https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01188", "author": "Aziz et al.", "datePublished": "2022", "isPartOf": { "@type": "Periodical", "name": "Endangered Species Research" }, "identifier": "doi:10.3354/esr01188" } ], "about": { "@type": "Taxon", "name": "Bengal Tiger", "scientificName": "Panthera tigris tigris", "description": "A single bound can cover up to 10 meters, and flat, square vocal folds push its roar to 114 decibels." } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/bengal-tiger/#faq", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How powerful is a Bengal tiger's roar?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "A tiger's roar can reach about 114 decibels from a few feet away, about 25 times as loud as a gas lawn mower. A 2011 study of vocal folds from lions and tigers, including a Bengal tigress, found the folds are flat and square rather than triangular, and fat inside them helps give them that shape. The square shape responds more easily to passing air, so a tiger gets a louder roar out of less lung pressure.", "citation": { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Born to Roar: Vocal Cord Shape Explains Loud, Low Pitch of Big Cats", "url": "https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/535717", "datePublished": "2011", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "EurekAlert! (University of Utah)" } } } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Do Bengal tigers really live in mangrove swamps?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. The tigers of the Sundarbans mangrove forest are the only tiger population adapted to living in mangroves. A 2022 study of their mitochondrial DNA, which passes from mother to cub, found they split from other Bengal tigers around 26,000 years ago. One of the three DNA types it found in them has turned up in no other tiger population, and the authors recommend managing them as a separate unit for conservation.", "citation": { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "name": "Phylogeography of Panthera tigris in the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans", "url": "https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01188", "author": "Aziz et al.", "datePublished": "2022", "isPartOf": { "@type": "Periodical", "name": "Endangered Species Research" }, "identifier": "doi:10.3354/esr01188" } } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does a tiger have a stronger bite than a lion?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Not exactly. A 2005 study that estimated bite force from the skulls of 39 living and fossil mammal predators put a tiger's canine bite at about 1,525 newtons, weaker than a lion's 1,768 newtons. Adjust for body size, though, and the tiger comes out ahead: its bite force quotient of 127 beats the lion's 112, so it bites harder for its weight.", "citation": { "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", "name": "Bite club: comparative bite force in big biting mammals and the prediction of predatory behaviour in fossil taxa", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2986", "author": "Wroe, McHenry & Thomason", "datePublished": "2005", "isPartOf": { "@type": "Periodical", "name": "Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences" }, "identifier": "doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2986" } } } ] }, { "@type": "MusicRecording", "name": "Forbidden Feelingz", "byArtist": { "@type": "MusicGroup", "name": "Nia Archives" }, "genre": "Drum & Bass / Spatial Jungle", "url": "https://open.spotify.com/track/6c21bVRfGC8IOXvQVQ2UTb" } ] } ```