The Bali tiger was a '' Panthera tigris sondaica''

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on the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n island of Bali which has been extinct since the 1950s. It was formerly regarded as a distinct

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...

subspecies with the scientific name ''Panthera tigris balica'', which had been assessed as extinct on the

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in 2008. In 2017, felid

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

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 Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

and its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

converted for human use. Balinese names for the tiger are ''harimau Bali'' and ''samong''.

Taxonomic history

In 1912, the German zoologist Ernst Schwarz described a skin and a skull of an adult female tiger in the

Senckenberg Museum The Naturmuseum Senckenberg is a museum of natural history, located in Frankfurt am Main. It is the second-largest of its type in Germany. The museum contains a large and diverse collection of birds with 90,000 bird skins, 5,050 egg sets, 17,0 ...

collection, that had originated in Bali. He named it ''Felis tigris balica'' and argued that it is distinct from the

Javan tiger The Javan tiger was a '' Panthera tigris sondaica'' population native to the Indonesian island of Java until the mid-1970s. It was hunted to extinction, and its natural habitat converted for agricultural land use and infrastructure. It was one of ...

by its brighter fur colour and smaller skull with narrower

zygomatic arch In anatomy, the zygomatic arch, or cheek bone, is a part of the skull formed by the zygomatic process of the temporal bone (a bone extending forward from the side of the skull, over the opening of the ear) and the temporal process of the zygo ...

es. 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 A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

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''.

Characteristics

The Bali tiger was described as the smallest tiger in the Sunda islands. In the 20th century, only seven skins and skulls of tigers from Bali were known to be preserved in museum collections. The common feature of these skulls is the narrow

occipital plane The squamous part of occipital bone is situated above and behind the foramen magnum, and is curved from above downward and from side to side. External surface The external surface is convex and presents midway between the summit of the bone and ...

, which is analogous with the shape of tiger skulls from

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. Skins of males measured between the pegs are long from head to end of tail; those of females . The weight of males ranged from , and of females from .

Habitat and ecology

Most of the known Bali tiger

zoological specimen A zoological specimen is an animal or part of an animal preserved for scientific use. Various uses are: to verify the identity of a (species), to allow study, increase public knowledge of zoology. Zoological specimens are extremely diverse. Exampl ...

s originated in western Bali, where mangrove forests, dunes and savannah vegetation existed. The main prey of the Bali tiger was likely the Javan rusa (''Rusa timorensis'').

Extinction

At the end of the 19th century,

palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

plantations and irrigated

rice field Wendel D. Ley Track and Holloway Field is a stadium in Houston, Texas. It is primarily used for track and field and soccer for the Rice University Owls. It is bounded by Main Street (southeast), University Boulevard (southwest), Reckling Pa ...

s were established foremost on Bali's rich volcanic northern slopes and the alluvial strip around the island. Tiger hunting started after the

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gained control over Bali. During the Dutch colonial period, hunting trips were conducted by European sportsmen coming from Java, who had a romantic but disastrous Victorian hunting mentality and were equipped with high-powered rifles. The preferred method of hunting tigers was to catch them with a large, heavy steel foot trap hidden under bait, a goat or a

muntjac Muntjacs ( ), also known as the barking deer or rib-faced deer, (URL is Google Books) are small deer of the genus ''Muntiacus'' native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. Muntjacs are thought to have begun appearing 15–35 million years ago, ...

, and then shoot them at close range. Surabayan gunmaker E. Munaut is confirmed to have killed over 20 tigers in only a few years.Vojnich, G. (1913). A Kelet-Indiai Szigetcsoporton n the East Indian Archipelago Budapest: Singer és Wolfner. In 1941, the first game reserve, today's West Bali National Park, was established in western Bali, but too late to save Bali's tiger population from extinction. It was probably eliminated by the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. A few tigers may have survived until the 1950s, but no specimen reached museum collections after the war. A few tiger skulls, skins and bones are preserved in museums.

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has the largest collection, with two skins and three skulls; others include the Senckenberg Museum in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

, the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, the Naturalis museum in

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and the Zoological Museum of Bogor, Indonesia, which owns the remnants of the last known Bali tiger. In 1997, a skull emerged in the old collection of the

Hungarian Natural History Museum The Hungarian Natural History Museum ( hu, Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum) in Budapest, dating back to 1802, houses the largest natural history collections of Hungary and the region. History of the museum Foundation In 1802, Count Fere ...

and was scientifically studied and properly documented.

Cultural significance

The tiger had a well-defined position in Balinese folkloric beliefs and magic. It is mentioned in folk tales and depicted in traditional arts, as in the ''

Kamasan Kamasan is a village on Bali, Indonesia. It is situated just to the north of Gelgel, in the Klungkung regency. Kamasan has a cultural importance on a Bali-wide level. The various 'traditional' styles of painting on modern Bali are derived from the ...

'' paintings of the

Klungkung Klungkung Regency is the smallest regency (''kabupaten'') on Bali, Indonesia. It has an area of 315 km2 and had a population at the 2010 Census of 170,543 which increased to 206,925 at the Census of 2020. The administrative centre for the reg ...

kingdom. The Balinese considered the ground powder of tiger whiskers to be a potent and undetectable poison for one's foe. A Balinese baby was given a protective amulet necklace with

black coral Antipatharians, also known as black corals or thorn corals, are an order of soft deep-water corals. These corals can be recognized by their jet-black or dark brown chitin skeletons, surrounded by the polyps (part of coral that is alive). Antipat ...

and "a tiger's tooth or a piece of tiger bone". The traditional Balinese '' Barong'' dance preserves a figure with the mask of a tiger called ''Barong Macan''. Balinese people are fond of wearing tiger parts as jewelry for status or spiritual reasons, such as power and protection. Necklaces of teeth and claws or male rings

cabochon A cabochon (; ) is a gemstone that has been shaped and polished, as opposed to faceted. The resulting form is usually a convex (rounded) obverse with a flat reverse. Cabochon was the default method of preparing gemstones before gemstone cutt ...

ed with polished tiger tooth ivory still exist in everyday use. Since the tiger has disappeared on both Bali and neighboring Java, old parts have been recycled, or leopard and

sun bear The sun bear (''Helarctos malayanus'') is a species in the family Ursidae (the only species in the genus ''Helarctos'') occurring in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. It is the smallest bear, standing nearly at the shoulder and weighing ...

body parts have been used instead.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q185401 Bali tiger Extinct animals of Indonesia Extinct carnivorans Extinct mammals of Asia Mammal extinctions since 1500 Mammals described in 1844 Fauna of Bali