NEWS – Odisha will start a melanistic tiger safari near Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR)

WHAT ARE MELANISTIC TIGERS

• Melanism is a genetic condition in which an increased production of melanin, a substance in the skin that produces hair, eye, and skin pigmentation, results in black (or nearly black) skin, feathers, or hair in an animal
• Many royal Bengal tigers of Similipal belong to a unique lineage with higher-than-normal levels of melanin, which gives them black and yellow interspersed stripes on their coats. These tigers are not entirely black, and are therefore more accurately described as being pseudo-melanistic
• The STR, which sprawls over 2,750 square km in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district adjoining Jharkhand and West Bengal, is Asia’s second largest biosphere, and the country’s only wild habitat for melanistic royal Bengal tigers.
• According to research co-authored by Uma Ramakrishnan and her student Vinay Sagar from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NBCS), Bengaluru, a single mutation in the gene Transmembrane Aminopeptidase Q (Taqpep) causes black tigers to develop stripes that seem to have broadened or spread into the tawny background.
• Genetic analyses of other tiger populations in India and computer simulations suggest that the Similipal black tigers may have arisen from a very small founding population of tigers, and are inbred. The STR cats live isolated from other tigers, because of which they breed among themselves
• Melanistic tigers have been recorded only in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha. As per the 2022 cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation, 16 individuals were recorded at Similipal Tiger Reserve, out of which 10 were melanistic