What Animal Did The Tiger Evolve From?

By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

The tiger may be more than ancient and singled-out than we idea.

Tigers are less closely related to lions, leopards and jaguars than these other large cats are to each other, according to a new comprehensive study.

The genetic assay also reveals the tiger began evolving iii.2 one thousand thousand years agone, and its closest living relative is the equally endangered snowfall leopard.

The discovery comes as the BBC launches a collection of intimate videos of wild tigers and the threats they confront.

Despite the popularity and endangered status of tigers, much remains to be discovered near them, including how they evolved.

It has long been known that the five species of big cat - the tiger, king of beasts, leopard, jaguar and snowfall leopard, which belong to the Panthera genus - and the 2 species of clouded leopard are more closely related to each other than to other smaller cats.

But it has been hard to pivot downwardly the exact relationships between them.

And then to discover out more, scientists Mr Brian Davis, Dr Gang Li and Professor William Murphy conducted an analysis of the DNA of all these species.

Past looking at similarities in Dna held in mitochondria and inside the sex chromosomes among other places, the researchers constitute that the five big cat species are related to each other in a different way to previously thought.

Their information strongly suggests that lions, leopards and jaguars are most closely related to each other.

Their ancestor carve up from other cats around four.three to three.eight 1000000 years ago.

Near 3.half dozen to 2.five 1000000 years ago, the jaguar began to evolve, while lions and leopards separate from ane other about 3.1 to 1.95 meg years agone.

But the tiger had already emerged past this betoken.

The antecedent of tigers and snow leopards also branched off effectually iii.9 million years ago.

The tiger and then began to evolve into a unique species toward the end of the Pliocene epoch, well-nigh 3.two million years ago.

Sumatran tigers caught on photographic camera in the wild

That makes the tiger and snowfall leopard "sister species", the researchers study in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Both tigers and snowfall leopards are among the world's almost endangered big cats.

Fewer than 3500 tigers are thought to survive in the wild.

Ane subspecies, the Sumatran tiger, is so enigmatic that the beginning movie of a wild private was only recorded this year, and Republic of indonesia is considering entrusting them to individual individuals for safe-keeping.

Last yr, a study revealed that the largest sub species, the Amur tiger, may be on the genetic brink, as so few individuals remain.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8512000/8512455.stm

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