A tiger's skin still displays its stripes if you shave away the fur. Snow leopards, with their spots, are the same way. The reason is likely because the cats' colored hair follicles embedded in the skin are visible, similar to beard stubble.
If you were to shave off all of the fur, its skin underneath would show the same exact markings, almost appearing as though they were tattooed! Also, each tiger's stripe patterns are completely unique, as distinct as human fingerprints.
A snow white Bengal tiger born without stripes is believed to be the only such animal living in the wild. The six-month-old cub is so rare it is thought there are fewer than 20 others like it - all in captivity. The female tiger, which has been named Fareeda, was born to two white Bengal tigers.
Unlike most striped animals, a tiger's skin is also striped underneath all of that fur and they are in fact orange with black stripes. Every individual tiger has its own pattern of stripes, and it is these patterns that allow us to recognise each tiger.
The fur and skin, both are striped in the case of a tiger. This means that if the fur were shaved off a tiger, the skin underneath would have the same markings that the fur had.
White tigers are rare because their colouring is caused by a mutation in their genes – the building blocks that make all animals look the way they do. Most white tigers are Bengal tigers that have the mutation, which also gives them blue eyes.
Tigers can indeed change their stripes—and in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in India, many have done just that. So-called black tigers, genetic mutants that sport unusually wide and merged stripes, were extremely rare even when tigers were plentiful centuries ago. But in Similipal today, one in three are black.
About black tigers
The creatures - known as melanistic tigers - are born with thick black stripes that cover their orange fur, making them appear completely black in some instances. There are known to be just six such black tigers on the planet.
A rare black tiger on the verge of extinction has been pictured in the wild. Amateur photographer Soumen Bajpayee, 27, took images of the melanistic tiger in eastern Odisha, India. The species is only found in the jungles of the Indian state and there are only six known to exist in the wild.
Tigers have one of the best memories of any animal, including humans. Their memories are made with stronger brain synapses which means that their short-term memory lasts approximately 30 seconds longer than ours does.
Instead, people should be advised to back away slowly and adopt a submissive posture, with arms by their side, relaxed shoulders, a slight dropping of the head and avoidance of direct eye contact. The aim is to reassure the tiger you are not a threat and it does not need to defend itself further.
Since 1990, more than 125 big cats and 20 humans have died in captivity-related incidents in the U.S. For everyone's safety, keep your hands away from tigers.
Tiger stripes are like human fingerprints. No two tigers have the same stripe patterns. The stripe patterns on individual tigers are different on each side.
Since white stripes only exist because pigment is denied, black is understood to be the “default” colour of a zebra. Beneath all that fur, zebras have black skin, too. A shaved zebra, without any stripes, could be almost unrecognizable as an all-black animal.
Avoid using any abrasive chemicals like ammonia, which can damage the finish of the gutters. By performing simple and routine maintenance, you can help reduce tiger striping and keep it at bay. You can also buy gutter guards to help keep your gutters free of dirt and debris.
Small Wild Cats
Unusual tiger that has been dubbed the "rainbow tiger". The tiger lives in the high cloud forest in Sumatra.
The white tiger is a result of a rare genetic mutation and the most efficient way to breed them is by using two tigers who have the recessive genes needed to produce offspring with a white coat. In captive breeding facilities these two individuals are often related, making inbreeding common.
Rarest species of tiger
Sumatran tigers are the rarest species of tiger, classified as Critically Endangered, with only 500-600 individuals left in the wild.
The world's largest marsupial carnivore, the thylacine was commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, due to the distinctive stripes on its back. Despite its fierce reputation, the tiger was semi-nocturnal and was described as quite shy, usually avoiding contact with humans.
The date 7 September 1936 is widely regarded as the day when the world's last remaining Tasmanian tiger – also known as the thylacine – took its final breath in a zoo in Hobart.
The Purple Tiger (Rhyparia purpurata) is a moth of the family Arctiidae. It is found in Europe, Anatolia, Syria, Transcaucasus, Central Asia (mainly in Kazakhstan and Kyrghyzstan), South Siberia, Mongolia, Amur Region, northern China, Korea and Japan (Honshu).
There are currently believed to be fewer than 30 of these rare tigers in the world, but many more carriers of the gene. While no official name has been designated for the colour, it is sometimes referred to as the strawberry tiger due to the strawberry blonde colouration.
The rarest animal in the world is the vaquita (Phocoena sinus). It is a kind of critically endangered porpoise that only lives in the furthest north-western corner of the Gulf of California in Mexico. There are only 18 left in the world. It is thought that they may be extinct in ten years.
A golden tiger, sometimes called a golden tabby tiger, is a tiger with a colour variation caused by a recessive gene. Like white tigers and black tigers, it is a colour form and not a separate subspecies.