Discovery of a tiger (Panthera tigris (L.)) skeleton from the Little Ice Age buried on the shore of Qinghai Lake, northeast Tibet Plateau

A nearly intact skeleton of a large mammal was unearthed on the north bank of the Qinghai Lake, at the northeastern edge of the Tibet Plateau in 2012. In this paper, the skeleton was identified as the remains of a sub-adult tiger (Panthera tigris) based on the analysis of its osteomorphological characteristics. The tiger remains were dated to 1648–1812 AD according to the direct AMS radiocarbon date on one of its bones, corresponding to the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1450–1850 AD), when the Qinghai Lake level was lower than 3203 m a.s.l. The region around Qinghai Lake was not a favourable habitat for wild tigers for the last 100 years. With the comparative review of historic records and relevant literature, we surmised that the tiger might have migrated from Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces, probably due to the exacerbated human-tiger conflicts resulting from the huge human population growth and migration events during the Qing Dynasty.