The tiger is a mammal and a type of cat.  Its scientific name is Panthera tigris.

It has an orange and black stripped body.  It grows to be 4 meters long and weighs around 300kg.

There are many different kinds of tigers:

• Bengal Tigers found in India
• Indonesian Tigers found in China
• Malayan Tigers found in Malaysia
• Sumatran Tigers found on the Island of Sumatra
• South China Tigers found in Southern China

The South China Tigers are the rarest species in the world.  There are only 59 known captive tigers in the whole world.

Tigers are endangered because their habitats are getting smaller and they are hunted by humans for their meat and fur.  Tiger skins make nice rugs!

 

Credits:

We would like to thank Smithsonian National Zoological Park for allowing us to use the image of the tiger. If you would like to find out more about the Zoo and see more amazing images of animals visit http://nationalzoo.si.edu/default.cfm

We used information from the following web sites to help us write this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/19.shtml

http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/agarman/tiger.htm