The Sunderbans spanning India and Bangladesh is the world’s only mangrove habitat of which big cat?

The Sundarbans forest is the only mangrove in the world that harbours Bengal tigers as the ecosystem’s apex predator. Occupying approximately 10,000 sq km, it is the largest tiger habitat in India and Bangladesh and home to more than 4 million people. With limited space and resources, these characteristics also make it one of the most significant human-tiger conflict hotspots.

The Bengal tiger ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world’s charismatic megafauna. It is the national animal of both India and Bangladesh. It used to be called Royal Bengal tiger.

The Bengal tiger’s coat is yellow to light orange, with stripes ranging from dark brown to black; the belly and the interior parts of the limbs are white, and the tail is orange with black rings. The white tiger is a recessive mutant of the tiger, which is reported in the wild from time to time in Assam, Bengal, Bihar, and especially from the former State of Rewa. However, it is not to be mistaken as an occurrence of albinism. In fact, there is only one fully authenticated case of a true albino tiger, and none of black tigers, with the possible exception of one dead specimen examined in Chittagong in 1846.

 

Picture Credit : Google