What foods do Bengal tigers eat?

Tigers eat a variety of prey ranging in size from termites to elephant calves. However, an integral component of their diet are large-bodied prey weighing about 20 kg (45 lbs.) or larger such as moose, deer species, pigs, cows, horses, buffalos and goats.

What is the food chain of a Bengal tiger?

Bengal tigers are fierce predators and eat many grazing primary consumers, such as Indian bison and sambar, a large deer species native to India. However, as a tertiary consumer, they also eat secondary consumers like the wild boar. The wild boar in turn eats herbivores like small lizards, rodents, fish, and insects.

What kind of animals do tigers eat?

Large animals They can eat just about any large animal that they can successfully catch and kill. Tigers are known to eat cattle, horses, bears, baby elephants, buffalo, young rhinoceros, pandas, and many other large animals because they do have the sheer force to bring these big animals down.

Is a tiger an apex predator?

As apex predators, tigers play an important role in maintaining a balanced food web in their ecosystems. In the absence of their natural predators, prey species populations can explode, leading to overconsumption of vegetation, damaging habitats or prey species expanding into human settlements.

Why are tigers at the top of the food chain?

In the forest ecosystem tiger sits at the top of the food chain as a tertiary carnivore and primary predator. Thus it controls the population of herbivores and preserves the forest and grassland ecosystem. …

What do Bengal tigers eat in the rainforest?

Their diets consist of antelopes, boars, monkeys, pigs, birds and occasionally elephants. On extremely rare occasions they have been known to attack humans. Their stripes aid it in being able to stalk and get close to prey.

Do Bengal tigers eat monkeys?

Bengal tigers prefer hunting large mammals such as deer (chital, sambar, gaur, barasingha), water buffalo, nilgai/blue bull, serow (goat-like) and takin (gnu goat). On the medium-sized species list, they frequently kill a wild boar, and rarely hog deer, muntjac deer and grey langur (black-faced monkeys).