Weighing in at up to 300kg and measuring 3m long, the tiger takes the title for the world’s largest cat species.
Specifically the Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), also known as the Amur tiger, a subspecies found in the north-west of China, the far east of Russia and potentially North Korea. Genetically, it was close to the now-extinct Caspian tiger subspecies (P. t. virgata), with the two descended from a common ancestor.
The Siberian tiger was one of the world’s apex predators, feeding on deer, wild boar, elk and moose, as well as other smaller mammals, and existing at the top of its food chain without facing threats from other animals – until humans came along.
In captivity, the world’s largest living cat is Hercules, a lion-tiger hybrid (called a liger) at Myrtle Beach Safari in California, USA. He measures 3.33m in length, and weighs 418.2kg.
In comparison to the huge size of the tiger, the world’s smallest cats – the black-footed cat and the rusty-spotted cat (both pictured below) – measure just 35-52cm and 35-48cm respectively.
!["Rusty-spotted]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/23/2022/10/Rusty-spotted-cat.-GettyImages-1181938866-18f7238.jpg?quality=90&resize=160%2C208 "\"Rusty-spotted")
!["A]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/23/2022/10/Black-footed-cat.-GettyImages-200209590-001-1fdcbfc.jpg?quality=90&resize=160%2C208 "\"Black-footed")
Main image: A Siberian tiger in the snow, in captivity in Canada. © martYmage/Getty