14 DAY TRIAL // According to an investigation that surveyed the genetic information in the tiger genome, it would appear that his big cat began evolving more than 3.2 million years ago. The comprehensive analysis also reveals that the feline is more tightly related to lions, leopards and jaguars than all of these cats are to each other. The finding clears some of the mysteries associated with how these wonderful and powerful creatures appeared and developed over the millennia. According to the paper, the closest living relative that the tiger has is the snow leopard, which is also severely endangered, the BBC News reports.
Tigers have a very weird situation right now, in the sense that they are some of the most popular and widely known animals in the world, while at the same time being severely endangered. Although many researchers have devoted years of their lives to studying these magnificent creatures, a lot of data about them still remains obscured. These missing pieces of information also include more details as to how the animals evolved.
Up until now, experts investigating big cats thought that tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, snow leopards and two species of clouded leopards were more closely linked to each other genetically than to any other species of smaller cats. However, there appear to be intricate relationships between these predators, and experts have had a tough time figuring them out up to this point. The only way out was to conduct a DNA analysis of all these species, and this is precisely what researcher Brian Davis, Dr. Gang Li and professor William Murphy did.
They looked at the differences and similarities that existed between these species in terms of the genetic information stored in their mitochondrial DNA, and the gender chromosomes. This investigation revealed that the big cats are actually related to each other in different patterns than the ones researches had suggested in previous studies. Lions, leopards and jaguars were found to be the most tightly linked, with a common ancestor probably living about 4.3 to 3.8 million years ago. At around the same time, the common ancestor of snow leopards and tigers appeared, the experts write in the latest issue of the respected scientific journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.