This is the largest of all the tiger subspecies, and in fact, the Siberian tiger is the largest cat on Earth. From the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail, it can exceed three meters in length, and males have been known to grow to weights in excess of 350 kilos.
While the Siberian tiger did indeed originally roam across much of the Russian territory known as "Siberia," members of this subspecies can now be found only in a thin strip of land in the farthest eastern reaches of Russia, right along the coast of the Sea of Japan. Perhaps as many as four hundred Siberian tigers still make a home there, with another few dozen or so possibly still inhabiting the very northern portions of Korea and China - a region historically known as "Manchuria." This limited territory is the largest contiguous tiger habitat in the world, unfortunately due to its frigid climate and low prey densities it can only support a limited number of tigers. Due to this newly reduced territory, the Siberian tiger is often referred to as the "Amur" tiger because the Amur River runs through this area, and occasionally as the "Manchurian" tiger. Scientifically, this subspecies is known as Panthera tigris altaica.
