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Well, they are kind of solitary animals. No one will warn them about something big getting close from behind.
No living thing has a feature “to” do anything. That implies decision making, which is intelligent design.
Tigers have spots on their ears, which can confuse attackers.
Tigers did not develop those spots “to” confuse attackers.
All models are wrong, but some are useful. Thinking of evolved features as having a purpose is wrong, but it is also incredibly useful.
Why do we have eyes? In some sense, there is no reason, just a sequence of random coincidences, combined with a slightly non-randon bias refered to as “survival of the fittest” (itself an incorrect model).
However, saying that we have eyes to see has incredible explanatory power, which makes it a useful model. Just like Newton’s law of Universal gravity. We’ve known it that is wrong for a century at this point, but most of the time still talk as if it’s true, because it is useful.
I hear what you’re saying, and you’re 100% correct, but I think most people will realize it’s a figure of speech, and easier to say than “Via the process of gene mutation trial and error over many, many generations of tigers, spots have developed on their ears that look like eyes, resulting in predation from behind being discourged.”
One way of thinking of it could be that since all of our intention and decision making originates in such a process, the line between them isn’t that clear.
The spots might be helpful for baby tigers?
Yes, they did though. That’s the purpose of this evolutionary trait. I see what you’re getting at, but you seem to be implying this was a concidence
Every evolutionary trait is coincidence. If it was adaptation we’d be able to regrow vital organs.
You’ve never seen a mockingbird peck at a cat’s butt all afternoon
Their predators are other tigers. There are tribes in Asia who wear masks on the backs of their heads with large eyes to deter tiger attacks. Apparently the tiger is very much about stabbing you in the back, and not so big on open confrontation.
Fun fact the South American short face bear is the only Ice aged giant that is thought not to be driven extinct by humans and fact humans could not hunt it, Tigers would be a pleasant snack for them.
Well that begs the question what the hell drove the short face bear to extinction? The long face bear?
Same thing that killed the humans, climate change.
Bigger, hornier tigers.
Tigers with horns 😨😨 ?
umm… hornier?
Wait until you learn about what dolphins sometimes do to their prey
Something respectful &/or cute I am sure
They boop them with their snoot.
Hippos
Look, I’m trying to lose the COVID weight, okay? Insults are unnecessary!
Not even on the same continent. Hippos are in Africa and Tigers are in Asia. Pretty big desert in between
The Indian ocean isn’t a desert
Got me
Geo, dude…
Are you sure? It’s not like you can drink the water. And how much life is there really once you get away from the coastal shelf?
This is the correct answer. Why are they so violent?
They’ve been bullied and fat-shamed their whole lives and they’ve had enough.
To make sure the tigers don’t start getting any ideas
Herbivores have nothing to lose when hands need to be thrown.
I just imagined a hippo with hands. Nightmare.
You’re not imagining. They’re real.
Depends where they are.
If they replace the ears? Goofy but harmless.
If they replace the tail? Run for your life, that’s the equivalent of a full horde of monkeys on steroids.
I think Africa is a rough biospehere to live in so everything’s gotta be super tough, the Amazon is like that too
Probably other tigers tbh
Yeah, predators get excited when you turn around and start moving away. These eyes are just asking “what are you doing step bro?”.
Tigers are only CR4. There’s lots of stuff more dangerous that that.
Yeah, you think you’re hot shit as a tiger and then here comes a Hellwasp…
Or feline AIDS. Can’t fool that with fake eyes.
i always thought it was fucked up that feline aids was CR10, but when you explain it like that it really makes sense.
If you can’t get it in because you think the back is the front then maybe you can
To be fair, they can be fooled the same way.
in the Ganges Delta in India, where tigers living under protection in a reserve had been killing about 60 people a year.
Geez that’s a lot.
I mean, deer kill about 400 people a year in the US and they aren’t even trying. 280 million people live in the Delta alongside a predator that is actually trying to kill them, so it mkaes sense.
There’s also a fuckton of deer and they’re dumb as fuck.
I’ve read somewhere that tigers usually aren’t trying to kill people, humans are not their natural prey and they normally ignore them. The ones that do kill people seem to have a bad experience with humans, like being shot at. Fuck humans.
I’ve seen people get out of vehicles to try to take selfies with grizzly bear cubs. I could kinda see black bears but like wtf. But yeah you get slapped once by either and you’re pretty much dead if you aren’t within 10 minutes to a hospital.
I learned this from Calvin & Hobbes
That makes sense. Tigers are just big cats - they’re all kinda jerks to each other (let alone other animals), but I suppose that comes with being an apex predator.
Tigers are territorial and solitary but quite social, they don’t usually get into fights when they meet, that only happens when they have an actual territorial conflict because there’s too many tigers on too little land. They’re perfectly fine with others visiting their prowling grounds, they might even hunt together, just don’t overstay your welcome. Actually not that terribly different from how humans treat their houses.
Wild tigers, as apex predators, have few natural threats. Their primary competitors include Asiatic wild dogs (dholes), which can harass tigers in packs.
Who knew wild dogs could be such dholes
my new head canon is that tigers are so fed up with asiatic wild dogs that they started calling them d holes
I’ve heard of A-holes and B-holes, but the existence of D-holes and the implied C-holes is news to me.
Make sure you get your a-hole and m-holes checked regularly
Probably humans, given they went from 100k to 5.6k in population in 100 years and are still in decline.
That’s not long enough to evolve something like this, though.
Very good point, I didn’t mean to conflate it happened in the last 100 years, more so the data of their deaths that I had access to had that timeliness.
Even arrows or spears wouldn’t have been long enough to develop such a trait. And with those tools, still I don’t think Tiger would have been a primary target for humans. Seems like for most societies felines and canines were just not things we eat. Though maybe hunted for the pelt? In which case maybe they do eat the meat?
Also statistically (since we’re talking evolution) it wouldn’t help much against humans, we’ve got good vision and intellect, the chances to fool us enough times for this adaptation to arise are slim.
Considering evolutionary time scales, this trait may have been a response to something large and dangerous that’s extinct now.
Eating a tiger liver would probably kill you with Vitamin A poisoning, a particularly painful affliction.
Easy to just avoid eating entirely, even if the rest of it is safe enough.
They are actually doing a bit better than we thought
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113186725/tigers-population-numbers-endangered-species
Sweet, that’s good to know. WWF needs to update their website. Too many chairs to the face I think.
https://wwf.ca/species/tigers/#%3A~%3Atext=Sadly%2C+tigers+are+on+the%2Cof+all+remaining+wild+tigers.
I didn’t know this was something I needed. Stolen!
i mean i’ll concede that it’s not entirely ineffective, but i very much question that it would significantly affect their survival.
If a human sees a tiger which they know may well kill another human, they’re not going to give a toss about where the tiger is looking, they’re going to have 5 friends with them who all carry the best weapons they have available to turn that tiger into a rug.
Joe Exotic?
Do they have them when they are little too? Or maybe it worked out that it was less likely predators would yoink their babies because it seemed like they were always watching. Can’t sneak up on someone with eyes on the back of their heads, that never close, even while sleeping.
Other tigers?
