Why Do Tigers Have Stripes?

Zoologists have spent many years researching why do Tigers have stripes and the reasoning seems to be the most obvious answer. They cannot find another reason for the stripes other than the effect it has to camouflage the Tiger with its background.

Tigers are hunters that need to hunt as often as possible to get enough meat into their system to survive. Everything that they do is to help them catch food easier. This questions ropes into the fundamental question of “what do Tigers eat” as well.

In order to have the best chance to catch its prey, Tigers will stay quiet and sneak up on their prey. This allows them to have the best chance of catching their prey. If they can get within 30 feet of the animal, it will be within the range of a Tigers deadly jumping ability.

Getting back to the question of why do Tigers have stripes, it’s to help them get as close to their prey as they can without being spotted. Their orange coloring helps them blend in with the grasses and ground covers, but they would stick out as a big orange ball. The black stripes break up the color and make them harder to spot.

Most animals in the wild do not see colors and dimensions as well as humans, so a solid object is much easier to see. The black, white, and gray of a Tigers stripes may even look like shadows for some of those animals, giving the Tiger a huge benefit.

The insane hunting skills of a Tiger mixed with a good camouflage pattern, make it very tough to beat in the jungle. Most animals do not have a chance of surviving if a Tiger is looking for lunch.

The Short Answer:

Why Do Tigers Have Stripes? Tigers have stripes to blend in to their surroundings and have a better chance of catching their prey.

Why do Tigers Roar?

Tigers roar to communicate with each other in both receptive and hostile situations. A tiger’s roar is the loudest of any feline and can compared to a live rock concert or a steel mill.  At over 110 decibels, a lions roar is just over an average human’s pain threshold for noise.  The sound can carry over 3km (2 miles) so roaring is the best way for them to communicate over long distances and thus reveal their location to potential mates who otherwise wouldn’t find them.

Roaring is a highly effective way for tigers to attract attention to themselves; a mother may roar to help her cubs find her, for instance. Roaring is also used to warn rival tigers who threaten to challenge a mating territory. Tigers have large, strong vocal folds which enable them to make loud, low-frequency, truly fearsome sounds!