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Concept
Bali tiger
Summary
The Bali tiger was a Panthera tigris sondaica population on the Indonesian island of Bali which has been extinct since the 1950s.
It was formerly regarded as a distinct tiger subspecies with the scientific name Panthera tigris balica, which had been assessed as extinct on the IUCN Red List in 2008. In 2017, felid taxonomy was revised, and it was subordinated to P. t. sondaica, which also includes the still surviving Sumatran tiger.
Results of a mitochondrial DNA analysis of 23 tiger samples from museum collections indicate that tigers colonized the Sunda Islands during the last glacial period 11,000–12,000 years ago.
In Bali, the last tigers were recorded in the late 1930s. A few individuals likely survived into the 1940s and possibly 1950s. The population was hunted to extirpation and its natural habitat converted for human use.
Balinese names for the tiger are harimau Bali and samong.
In 1912, the German zoologist Ernst Schwarz described a skin and a skull of an adult female tiger in the Senckenberg Museum collection, that had originated in Bali. He named it Felis tigris balica and argued that it is distinct from the Javan tiger by its brighter fur colour and smaller skull with narrower zygomatic arches.
In 1969, the distinctiveness of the Bali tiger was questioned, since morphological analysis of several tiger skulls from Bali revealed that size variation is similar to Javan tiger skulls. Hue and striping pattern of fur neither differs significantly.
A comparison of mitochondrial DNA sequences from 23 museum specimens of Bali and Javan tigers with other living tiger subspecies revealed a close genetic resemblance of the tigers in the Sunda Islands. They form a monophyletic group distinct and equidistant from tigers in mainland Asia.
In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy, and now recognizes the extinct Bali and Javan tiger populations, as well as the Sumatran tiger population as P. t. sondaica.
The Bali tiger was described as the smallest tiger in the Sunda islands.
Official source
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