DESCRIPTION: The last of the island tigers, this cat is generally smaller than mainland tigers. The average adult male weighs 220 to 309 pounds and is 7-feet-2 to 8-feet-5 inches long; the female, 165 to 242 pounds and 7-feet to 7-feet-6-inches long.

Its color is notably darker than mainland tigers, with its stripes numerous and closely spaced. In fact, it is the most striped of all the tiger subspecies.

STATUS: Critically endangered on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. John Seidensticker of the Save the Tiger Fund Council says humans continue to encroach upon reserves to grow coffee and to poach, and the reserves have not protected the tiger. The number of Sumatran tigers is estimated at about 500, and tiger-human conflict remains rife.

"They are just ripping apart (remaining) tiger habitat, and tigers are killing displaced people moving into their habitat who don't know how to live with them," Seidensticker says. "They're homesteading on patches of forest, growing rice on riverbanks where tigers come for water."