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Ancient Rome CASPIAN TIGER Panthera tigris virgata, also known as Persian, Mazandaran, Hyrcanian and Turanian tiger   * It was the separation of their territories, less than ten thousand years ago, that led to the split into two subspecies, the Siberian and the Caspian tiger The Caspian tiger lived in the upper reaches of the River Aras, from the forested slopes and plains of the Talysh mountain range to the Lankaran lowlands, on the southern and eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, on the northern side of the Alborz mountain range up to the River Atrek, in the southern part of the Kopet Dag mountain range as far as the Murgab River basin, as well as along the upper stretch of the Amu Darya and its tributaries, in the Amu Darya valley to the point where it reaches the Aral Sea, and in the lower reaches of the Zeravshan, upstream of the Ili, along the River Tekes and into the Taklamakan desert   † Direct hunting, a dwindling habitat and a decline in its main prey populations were the reasons for the extinction of the Caspian tiger One was shot in 1954 in the Sumbar River valley in the Kopet Dag range, on the Iran-Turkmenia border Other reports suggest the last tiger was killed in 1959 in the Golestan National Park in northern Iran Caspian tigers were last sighted in 1964 in the foothills of the Talysh mountains and the river basin of the Lankaran lowlands near the Caspian Sea In the early 1970s, biologists from the Iranian Department of Environment spent years scouring the remote, uninhabited Caspian forests for them, in vain None survived in captivity A handful of preserved cadavers found their way into natural history collections in London, Tehran, Baku, Almaty, Novosibirsk, Moscow and St Petersburg A stuff ed Caspian tiger was on display in the Tashkent Museum of Natural History until the mid-1960s, when it was destroyed in a fire   In the evening they are hungry and restless No meat for days No hunting since they themselves were captured