The Caspian tiger, also known as
the Persian tiger, Turanian tiger,
Mazandaran tiger or Hyrcanian
tiger, was the
westernmost population of Siberian tiger, found in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Turkey,
Mongolia,
Kazakhstan,
Caucasus,
Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan,
and Uzbekistan
until it apparently became extinct
in the late 1950s, though there have been several alleged sightings of the
tiger.
The Caspian
tiger's body was generally less massive than that of its Far Eastern cousins,
and its average size slightly less. In Turkestan,
male tigers exceeded 200 cm in length, though an estimated body length of
270 cm was recorded. The maximum known weight was 240 kg.
The Russian government had worked hard to eradicate the Caspian tiger
during the planning of a huge land reclamation program in the beginning of the
20th century. They felt that there was no room for the tiger in their plans and
so they instructed the Russian army to exterminate all of the tigers found
around the areas of the Caspian Sea
and
Wikipedia
Some reports have
stated that the last Caspian tiger was shot near the town of