| macintosh.world | Log In | Register |
| Today | News | Books | Recipes | Notes | YouTube | QuickTake |
| Translate | Wiki | Browse | Maps | Reference | Reddit | About |
Tigers in India
by /u/TuneMountain4141 | 107 comments | 2026-06-16T04:57:37+00:00 Central
Comments
| /u/Criux_ Male tigers also raise orphaned cubs in VERY rare cases if the mother died |
| /u/Critical_Buddy_2145 I've heard male cats just slime the young ones to reduce competition 🥀 |
| /u/DiscoPotato69 Yeah hence the "VERY rare" |
| /u/Ok-Wolverine-3238 They prefer medium rare and well done |
| /u/hates_stupid_people Very common when a male lion takes over a pride and similar. But tigers are more solitary so it happens on very rare occasions with them. When it comes to house cats it can be more common, depending on the situation. |
| /u/Critical_Buddy_2145 Still it does make sense for a lone male tiger to slime them kids for easier future |
| /u/Awkward-Custard3907 they dont slime the female ones |
| /u/riftshioku It definitely happens in house cats, especially if they're feral and don't have all their needs met. Significantly less likely with your average indoor only cat, but it does still happen. |
| /u/Critical_Buddy_2145 Diabolical , nature can be pretty harsh It just shows humans aint anything different, or that consciousness makes us 'evil' for eating meat etc. If a pack of lions or polar bears had sophisticated weapons they wouldn't give a single sht before using it |
| /u/Radzila Usually another male tiger's cubs, not their own |
| /u/Select_Newspaper_108 Wouldn't shock me if male Tigers are more likely to do this than other cats due to the species status. Tigers are one of the most endangered cats in the world |
| /u/Procyon-Sceletus You... you think the tigers are aware theyre endangered? |
| /u/Takemyfishplease Duh, how else would they know to goose the numbers? It's all a scam by big wildlife. |
| /u/PaarthurnaxUchiha You are confusing intellectual knowledge with biological knowledge. We never said tigers read global conservation data. We are saying their bodies are chemical engines. When their habitats are destroyed and they are crowded together, their biology reacts. Epigenetic switches flip, stress hormones skyrocket, and their fertility drops. Their bodies biologically 'know' they are in a crisis state because nature has hardwired them to chemically respond to environmental collapse. You don't need a spreadsheet to be in survival mode. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/arti cles/10.3389/fendo.2025.1571111/pdf |
| /u/Budget_Avocado6204 You don't need to be aware to cement some behavior. As long as it increases the odds of survival or just doesn't harm them it can get passed down. |
| /u/entropy_bucket Won't they be aware of the lack of mates? |
| /u/Select_Newspaper_108 Animals are more intricate than some think they are. Especially apex predators, they have a verrry scientific way of operating |
| /u/sai-kiran Bro the animals are intricate as in, geee that river levels seems to be rising, oh its so hot may be I need to go into shade and pull my kids in etc. Not conducting international studies on tiger population counts. |
| /u/Select_Newspaper_108 They're obviously not counting population it's more like... "geee, I have no tigers bordering me north and east, my territory is huge, it's tough to find females" |
| /u/joey-jo_jo-jr Tigers are endangered because they've been expatriated from many areas. In the places where they do exist they are often locally overpopulated. Any subconscious awareness of their environment would suggest to them that there are more tigers than ever. |
| /u/RomanArchitect What does slime mean here? I |
| /u/MCB1317 A giant king-like deer once raised a young fawn after his mother was shot by a hunter. |
| /u/FuzzyFrogFish They've also been observed playing step father to cubs father by other males. Of course it's incredibly rare but it has happened |
| /u/unk214 She takes my money, while I'm in need! |
| /u/fondledbydolphins It makes sense for almost any species to do this, so long as food and mating opportunities are plentiful. |
| /u/unhinged_diabetes In major cases they harm the child |
| /u/STEPPYthebest Have y'all wondered if other animals also have their own pets |
| /u/Vermillion_glitch Some spiders keep pet frogs :3 |
| /u/jey__bee7 Stop that's so cuteeee Wait but how does that work😠don't frogs just eat the spider? |
| /u/NatriureticFactor It is like a mutual relationship between them, mostly between frogs and large tarantulas. Tarantula provides shelter and defend the tiny frogs against predators like snakes. The tiny frogs live in the spider's burrow and eat small invertebrates like ants that threaten spider's egg sacs. These frogs are not that big to eat the tarantulas. |
| /u/SalsaRice If memory serves, the frogs evolved something to make the spider just completely ignore them. The spider doesn't interact with the frog, it's presence in it's web/burrow is enough to scare away most frog predators. |
| /u/NatriureticFactor You are correct, the tarantula recognizes frog's specific chemical signals and knows not to eat them. These are proved to be evolutionary features in the relationship. |
| /u/lucashc90 So, are you telling me the frog just "emits" smol pet energy and the spiders just goes "Yeah, that's right!" |
| /u/NatriureticFactor Well, you can say that. It's the effect of the kind of relationship they have, so they started to pass on these effects on newer generations and now they know what to do. |
| /u/Mind-The-Mines Like Juggernaut and the fat kid in Deadpool 2. |
| /u/scrapped_data https://preview.redd.it/v307ytrhhn7h1.jpeg?width=2160&fo rmat=pjpg&auto=webp&s=882416ea808facaee6dbbc6aaa96538498 132571 |
| /u/jey__bee7 https://preview.redd.it/th9f6gcaln7h1.jpeg?width=736&for mat=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f7f9b15da1f2fdbe7401e5a8d33b1531453 b53a9 |
| /u/scrapped_data My lady, Tarantula. The wicked snake pursue me most greedily. Might I seek shelter in thy burrow (DMs). https://preview.redd.it/s09gcfvg1o7h1.jpeg?width=1024&f ormat=pjpg&auto=webp&s=171e2a49fb647b80df9e03dc3a2da3e43 ca6761a |
| /u/abrahamsen arachnophobia_warning |
| /u/Throwaway-4230984 No need to eat the whole thing at once, he can eat a leg a day or something like this |
| /u/Overall-Register9758 I read a story about a spider who had a pet pig |
| /u/SeriousDirt Not pets but ants does something like ranching. |
| /u/GrowingPeepers What does aphid milk taste like? |
| /u/Own_Natural_2959 I'll be back soon, my hibiscus plant has got some. |
| /u/frflana apparently there are slave-making ants lol |
| /u/clawsoon Social amoeba farm, too: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09668 They are some of the most fascinating organisms around. The more you learn about them, the more interesting they get. |
| /u/JackRabbit- Koko the gorilla rather famously kept a few kittens as pets. But with animals it's rather difficult to apply the term I think, "pet" implies ownership and even when different animals have a close bond it's not like they take them to the vet, house them, or feed them. |
| /u/Sad_Cucumber_9139 A pretty close one is Clownfish and Sea anemone, clownfish literally feed the Sea anemone |
| /u/NotJoeFast Some monkeys keep dogs with them. Dog gets food and company and in return they protect the monkey colony. |
| /u/-Thisismyrealname That sounds awfully familiar |
| /u/OuterWildsVentures do the monkeys pet the dogs tho |
| /u/ManWordsMan Wait till you find out some keep slaves. some species of Ants keep slaves. This behavior involves raiding neighboring colonies, abducting their larvae or pupae, and forcing the hatched ants to perform all the daily labor in the slaver colony |
| /u/SeriousDirt The more you know about ants, the crazier they are. |
| /u/crowieforlife It's not really "forcing" more like tricking. The invading ants produce pheromones mimicking those of the queen of the invaded hive. Ants smell queen pheromone, ants follow queen pheromone. It's unlikely that they're even aware that they're actually working for the enemy. Even their own queen is more of a slaver than a friend. There are species of ants, where all females are born fertile, and the queen personally waits for them to hatch so she can cut off their genitals, forcing them to become workers and making them unable to usurp her. |
| /u/Various_Ad1416 In zoos cheetahs get emotional support labradors ðŸ˜. |
| /u/QuantumFluxSpaghetti read about Amazon Ants & Blood-Red Ants if you're interested. |
| /u/thrillho145 Baboons keep pet dogs, but they're pretty cruel to them |
| /u/Prasiatko Some urban monkey troops coexist with the street cats since they are disposed to pet furry things and the cats like being petted. |
| /u/Electrical_Lake8083 BBC has documented two tigress sharing similar feeding ground co parenting each other kids and also a male tiger instead of attacking the cubs to mate again, instead the cubs and the mother named Goma tiger actually welcomed him rubbing their heads and all these animals are more social then we ever imagined and all this was documented in Sauraha, Nepal |
| /u/ledhendrix If tigers start rolling in packs, everyone and everything needs to watch out. |
| /u/Desperate-Opening365 Tigers seem to be mentally evolving. Time to change the king? |
| /u/bioskope In Asia...Tiger has been King for a long time. |
| /u/Realistic-Goose9558 We stopped killing the fuck out of them and we reduced the size of their habitat. |
| /u/Lemonwizard Eusocial behavior is actually heavily favored by natural selection when it emerges. The most obvious example is humans, whose complex cooperation has caused a population explosion which makes us account for 99.997% of all extant apes. Colony insects are also vastly more populous than non-colony insects in the same ecosystem. Herds benefit prey animals and packs benefit predator animals. Killing the competition's babies may help one individual improve their reproductive success, but a predisposition to assist other members of the species will benefit the species as a whole. |
| /u/Desperate-Opening365 Yeah it is interesting to see how humans are slowly getting more and more hostile while other animals known to be cannibal and violet are growing benevolent |
| /u/Lemonwizard This hostility is not a product of evolution - it's being deliberately manufactured by malicious actors who control most large media outlets. Evolution does not work that fast. |
| /u/IfatallyflawedI Yep, the two mom shared 5 cubs between them |
| /u/Neo_Ronin1331 India has single handedly saved tigers from extinction. Pulled off one of the greatest conservation comebacks ever, growing its wild tiger population from a terrifying low of 1,411 in 2006 to an estimated 3,682 today. Because of this massive turnaround, India alone is now home to roughly 75% of all wild tigers on Earth. |
| /u/GuiltyEidolon Greatest comeback is the California Condor. 22 individuals - total. They were all trapped and brought into captivity to be part of a breeding program and keep them from dying. Up to 607 individuals, with about a third being in breeding programs in captivity still. |
| /u/R1donis "Ok, there are 22 of you, we are not letting anyone out untill all females are pregnant" |
| /u/BeatleJuice1st Really?! Now every Incel wants to become a condor. |
| /u/Qweesdy Birds don't get pregnant - they poop out disposable wombs instead. |
| /u/SpannerFrew I raise you the Chatham Island robin which was down to 5 in 1980 with only one breeding pair. Link |
| /u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex Another key component to this is banning leaded ammo. It took something like 20 years to happen after the SD Zoo and others involved started trying but that was a huge part of their demise. It still is in fact because neighboring states still allow leaded ammo and birds don't know about state lines. |
| /u/Bruce-7892 It's weird because we probably think of humans as the only ones that are altruistic, but animals can have friends and "pets" even from different species if they don't see them as a threat or a meal. |
| /u/gavin280 We (animal behaviourists, neuroscientists, etc) actually don't think humans are the only altruistic species, and we haven't for some time. You're 100% correct that many other species exhibit behaviours that are "altruistic" by any reasonable definition. |
| /u/Frooctose What instances of true altruism occur in nature? |
| /u/Bruce-7892 That's impossible to say with certainty because you can't ask an animal why it chose to do something but animals like orcas, ducks and even donkeys have attacked animals that were preying on a completely different species. This could be because they are conditioned to see certain animals as a threat, or maybe they were being protective for all we know. When caring for another animal it could be instinctual. Animals like dogs are social and communal because their survival depends on being part of a pack in nature. |
| /u/TheKnightMadder Humpback whales happily intervene to save other animals from being hunted by orca. They'll travel long distances just to get into fights with orca to save seals, dolphins, other whales or whale calves. Of course orca eat humpback calves, so it may be more about fucking up orca than anything else. You've got to respect the hate if so. There's also reports of humpbacks doing things like trying to hide divers under their fins when sharks are nearby, just like they would with a baby humpback. |
| /u/Frooctose That's pretty interesting, I don't know enough about whales to comment on it. People online think it's due to the whales being confused, but I'm not sure. |
| /u/Decloudo We are animals, we are part of nature (even if we ignore it). We evolved to be able to do this this the same way any other animal did to be able what they can. Lots of overlap. But if you ask "what other animal does this the exact same way humans do" you automatically introduce a bias. Cause you deny to see it if its not "how humans do it". |
| /u/MurkyTrainer7953 My cat believes he adopted me. Brings me toys that he "catches" occasionally as "food". He believes his human is an idiot and incapable of hunting for themself. Sometimes he licks me too cause apparently I can't bathe myself. |
| /u/PresentRaspberry6814 Lots of animals raise others young, chickens and cats for example domestically. |
| /u/SlogurkTheOverslime Ooo interesting, have other species been significantly outperforming humans in different forms of "altruism"? |
| /u/OldWorldDesign have other species been significantly outperforming humans in different forms of "altruism"? Depends on what kind of constraints you're using to frame the question. If we define altruism as doing something for the good of another without any clear immediate return then we see that often. Octopi and some varieties of fish will help each other hunt, sometimes the octopus gets the prey fish and sometimes it's the other predator https://www.science.org/content/article/some-octopuses- treat-fish-hunting-buddies Often it's much more distant, like cats and chickens who grow up together https://insightfulblog.com/can-you-keep-chickens-if-you -have-cats/ Some people define altruism as never having any benefit, which I believe is a bad-faith tactic of trying to act like altruism doesn't exist at all. Such framing means that even feeling good transforms human altruism into selfishness, which is nonsense. Social species raising each others' young is not just pro-social, but reduces the burden on any one caregiver and makes survival of the entire group higher. That's a distant benefit which I don't think negates the existence of "altruism". It just means it's a complex reality. |
| /u/gavin280 That's a great question and I honestly don't know the answer. It's tough to say exactly how we would measure "altruistic performance". There are some examples of largely analogous atruistic behaviours (e.g. raising someone else's offspring) where we've measured the frequency in different animal populations, and we could statistically compare with humans. As it turns out, you can point to specific examples where nonhuman animals engage in the behaviour far more extensively, such as ants. But is the simple frequency of a behaviour really a good measure of "altruistic performance"? It strikes me that we may also want to ask what the cost of a given altruistic behaviour is to individual survival and probably a host of other questions. Going back to ants, SO much else about their entire social structure and nervous systems. |
| /u/Bruce-7892 I was generalizing. Most people probably don't think that, but we are always intrigued when we see a warthog hanging out with a meerkat for example (although that actually happens in real life). |
| /u/fastforwardfunction Many people consider "altruism" to not exist and believe humans and other animals can't be truly altruistic. When trying to define "altruism", the definitions quickly become self-defeating and perhaps paradoxical. From a schematic, scientific, and biological view, it's not a very useful term. |
| /u/Bruce-7892 So a relative or close friend who willingly puts themselves in a life or death situation to help someone they are close to isn't altruistic? You can search for selfish reasons for them to do so all day, but you are being speculative. To me its not that much of a stretch to think some people want to help certain others at their own expense. |
| /u/ShibamKarmakar Elephants 100% think of us as their "pets." |
| /u/Bruce-7892 IDK about that one. I think if they grew up interacting with people in a healthy environment they'd be fine but they are still undomesticated animals. Google "The friendliest hippo" and you can find a mini documentary about people who casually hang out with a hippo that comes and goes and even enters their house and gets hand fed. Try that with a random wild hippo and you are going to get turned into road kill. |
| /u/Overbaron we probably think of humans as the only ones that are altruistic What makes you say that? Have you heard of this animal called "dog"? |
| /u/Anuki_iwy Meanwhile lions, who typically get twins, will abandon the other if one cub dies. Therefore tigers are the better cars. |
| /u/Anuki_iwy Tabbies are Standard issue cars. Are tigers standard issue lorries? 🤔 |
| /u/AntiSocialSingh https://giphy.com/gifs/L69hWWDRdc0NQ66pwZ |
| /u/the_orange_alligator If a cat is a cat a tiger is a truck |
| /u/legitimate_maybe999 https://giphy.com/gifs/KEVODnr6kaJws |
| /u/stupled Better than Jaguars, those are lemmons. |
| /u/preda1or https://giphy.com/gifs/LSSf6hSR1rmR7mBiOH |
| /u/Radzila While the behavior is a documented evolutionary strategy, abandonment is not an absolute rule. Many mothers fiercely protect and raise single cubs |
| /u/47-AGENT Child support does not come with western terms looks like |
| /u/idontknowhowtopark I mean, they are gorgeous. |
| /u/squidgytree They probably faced pressure from their Indian parents to settle down and have kids |
| /u/Shrimp_kisses Not a step dad, a dad who stepped up |
| /u/A-Lewd-Khajiit Don't the females usually raise the cubs? |
| /u/Shrimp_kisses You're asking me as a Khajiit? You smoking scooma rm? |
| /u/A-Lewd-Khajiit Skooma is a way of life (don't do drugs kids) |