Blue or Maltese tigers are reported most often from Fujian province in southeastern China. According to eyewitnesses, these representatives of the cat family have a bluish skin with dark gray stripes. The adjective "Maltese" is commonly used to refer to domestic cats with a bluish tint to their fur. The existence of tigers of this color has not been proven for certain.
Maltese tiger sightings
In 1910, American missionary and hunter Harry Caldwell claimed to have seen a blue tiger. He described the color of the beast as bluish-gray, turning into dark blue at the bottom of the body, with dark stripes like that of an ordinary orange tiger.
Caldwell wrote: “I glanced at the object that appeared to me to be a crouching man in traditional light blue robes, and turned my attention back to the goat I was looking after. My companion pulled me by the elbow, saying, "A tiger is definitely a tiger." I looked again, now it is accented. I saw a huge tiger head, taller than what I thought was human clothing. It turned out to be the chest and belly of the beast."
Caldwell's dream was to shoot the beast and get its hide. Locals confirmed the existence of "blue devils", as they called these animals. Caldwell, along with his son John and several other hunters, tried unsuccessfully to find the blue tiger.
In some cases, they found bluish hair on mountain trails. However, it was not possible to meet a live Maltese tiger. This hunt is described in detail by Caldwell's companion, an employee of the American Museum of Natural History, Roy Chapman Andrews.
Richard Perry, in his book "The World Of The Tiger", confirmed that in China the Maltese tigers were indeed called "blue devils" because they often attacked people. Recently, sporadic reports of blue tigers have come from a mountainous area on the border between North and South Korea. But since North Korea does not welcome outsiders on its territory, these messages cannot be verified.
Theoretical possibility of existence
Eyewitness reports are not solid proof of the existence of the blue tiger. There is not a lot of material evidence. Until now, it has not been possible either to get the skin of this animal, or even to photograph it.
Supporting the theory of the existence of the Maltese tiger is the fact that among other felines, blue shades are not unusual. Such breeds of domestic cats as Russian blue, British shorthair, British blue are quite widespread. It is also reliably known about the existence of blue lynxes.
British zoologist Karl Shuker suggests that blue tigers possess two pairs of recessive alleles - non-agouti and a degeneration gene, which combine to give a bluish gray color. True, in this case, the tiger would not have dark stripes.
Maltese tigers are reported to belong to the South China tiger subspecies. This subspecies is today under threat of complete extinction, due to the use of drugs from them in traditional Chinese medicine. So it is possible that the tigers of the rare blue alleles are now extinct.
