Species File: Exploring India’s biodiversity, one species at a time.
Tiger stripes are unique, like human fingerprints. No two tigers have the same stripes, a trait that helps researchers monitor the species’ population. In India — home to 75% of the world’s wild tigers — such monitoring plays a crucial role in conservation efforts.
Tigers (Panthera tigris) are the largest of all big cat species, and apex predators. They have a distinctive reddish-orange yellow coat, and a muscular build. Tigers can survive in a wide range of habitats, including mangrove swamps, forests and grasslands. As a solitary and territorial animal, the tiger relies on its strength to hunt its prey, and is vital to the health of entire ecosystems.
Central India holds about 40% of the country’s wild tigers, with recent estimates placing the population at around 3,682 individuals. In 1972, the Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) was declared the national animal of India.
In India, tigers are listed under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, giving it the highest level of protection. In 2006, the act was amended to provide for constituting the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for strengthening tiger conservation.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Species, tigers are endangered, which means they face a very high risk of extinction in the wild.
Despite tiger populations having stabilised in the past few years, they continue to face significant threats such as shrinkage of tiger habitat, biotic interference in habitat and hunting of prey animals. Poaching for illegal wildlife trade and conflict with humans further threatens their survival.
In an earlier story that Mongabay-India published in October 2025, Pallavi Ghaskadbi, a wildlife biologist and postdoctoral researcher at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said, “Tigers need connected landscapes. Protecting and restoring forest corridors between reserves is not just a long-term goal but essential for dispersing tigers right now.”
Read more about tiger movement across forest corridors in central India, and watch this video on what it is like living side-by-side with Bengal tigers.
Banner image: Tiger cubs sport their striped coats. Image by Brian Gratwicke via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
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