Caspian tiger
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.
| Caspian tiger | |
|---|---|
| Tiger from the Caucasus in Berlin Zoological Garden, 1899 | |
Extinct (1970) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Subfamily: | Pantherinae |
| Genus: | Panthera |
| Species: | P. tigris |
| Subspecies: | P. t. tigris |
| Population: | †Caspian tiger |
| Historical distribution | |
Results of a phylogeographic analysis evinces that the Caspian and Siberian tiger populations shared a common continuous geographic distribution until the early 19th century.
Some Caspian tigers were intermediate in size between Siberian and Bengal tigers.
It was also called Balkhash tiger, Hyrcanian tiger, Turanian tiger, and Mazandaran tiger.