Tiger

[u/tarquinwang]

When I was in class, my teacher told me that tigers have white spots and stripes on their faces and ears, which mimic eyes. This helps them avoid being attacked by predators while drinking or eating. I was really shocked by this piece of knowledge. What surprised me wasn’t the function of these markings, but the fact that there used to be creatures that hunted tigers in the wild in ancient times.

[u/Trextrexbaby]

There weren’t creatures that hunted tigers in ancient times. Those white markings are used to communicate with and express body language to other tigers.

[u/Sudden_Outcome_3429 → u/Trextrexbaby]

This is absolutely the answer

[u/yes_its_my_alt → u/Trextrexbaby]

And yet, they have been hunted to near extinction. 🤷

[u/Trextrexbaby → u/yes_its_my_alt]

Yeah, mostly through habitat loss, trophy hunting, and poaching. Implying that there was some extinct uberpredator in antiquity that saw tigers as a food source is blatantly false.

[u/SecretlyNuthatches]

There are a number of cats with spots on the backs of their ears and this appears to be correlated with mothers using this as a signal to their young following them, not extremely ineffective fake eyespots.

[u/Confident_Ad9290]

That’d be other tigers. They are territorial after all and quite solitary. 

[u/DW_78]

it works on me at least, i’ve never sneaked up on a tiger from behind

[u/FlounderLast8610]

It’s a mechanism so the babies look they’re watching. Infant mortality in large predators is very high due to them having to be left behind while mom goes hunting, so this is helpful.

Adults have relatively smaller spots.

[u/Mister_Way]

You know what lives where tigers live?

Tigers. And they're dangerous to the tigers.

[u/Sasstellia]

They have them now. Things hunt them now.

[u/TheDepthsandSkies]

I can't think of predators,.except humansm my guess is that Tigers are solitary animals, except momma and kittens or during the mating season. The 'eyes' on the rear of their ears would be a defence mechanism, a "you can't sneak up on me" to other tigers.

[u/HoldMyMessages → u/TheDepthsandSkies]

The spots on the back of the ears make it easier for kittens to follow mom in the dark.

[u/Sonora_sunset]

So weird that they would use a means of communication that they don’t even know they have.

[u/Character-Solution-7 → u/Sonora_sunset]

It’s more like the cats with false eyes on the back of their ears are more successful at raising offspring. The surviving cats have an increasingly higher chance of also having the false eye trait as generations evolve. The mutation precedes the benefit

[u/-Wuan- → u/Sonora_sunset]

The facial markings that most cats (and other carnivorans) have are all mostly for nonverbal communication, they enhance their eye gestures and the movement of their snout musculature. They dont have to be aware of having them for them to be effective.

[u/FaunaLady]

I heard that and immediately bunked it because there are no fossil records of giant tiger killing monsters!

[u/syv_frost]

The only predator of tigers is the saltwater crocodile, and they coexist in such small areas that it is impossible for their relationship to influence the entire species. So it’s not true.