s in Sarawak and Sabah produced an upper canine tooth, a navicular and a metacarpal bone that were identified as being of a tiger. It has therefore been suggested that the tiger was present in Borneo during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. A bone fragment was also found in the Philippineisland of Palawan. Archaeologists considered it unlikely that these fragments were traded between different regions during the Pleistocene. Natives of Borneo keep the memory of the tiger alive in their culture by treating its body parts as heirlooms. Therefore, it has been suggested that the Bornean tiger existed longer than prehistoric times.
Possible connection with Palawan
Borneo might have been connected to Palawan during the penultimate and previous glacial periods, judging from the molecular phylogeny of murids. In northern Palawan, two articulated phalanx bones, possibly from the same toe, besides a distal segment of a basal phalanx of the 5th or 4th digit of the pes or manus, were excavated amidst an assemblage of other animal bones and stone tools in Ille Cave near the village of New Ibajay, in the province of El Nido. One bone was a full basal phalanx of the second digit of the left manus, and the other was the distal portion of a subterminal phalanx of the same digit and manus. With the former bone having a greatest length of, and the latter having a medio-lateral width of the distal end of, for example, their measurements were similar to those of extant tigers from the Malayan Peninsula and India. The other fossils were identified as being of Philippine long-tailed macaque, Philippine deer, Palawan bearded pig, small mammals, lizards, snakes and turtles. From the stone tools, besides the evidence for cuts on the bones, and the use of fire, it would appear that early humans had accumulated the bones. Additionally, the condition of the tiger subfossils, dated to approximately 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, differed from other fossils in the assemblage, dated to the Upper Paleolithic. The tiger subfossils showed longitudinal fracture of the cortical bone due to weathering, which suggests that they had post-mortem been exposed to light and air. Tiger parts were commonly used as amulets in South and Southeast Asia, so it may be that the tiger parts were imported from elsewhere, as is the case with tiger canine teeth, which were found in Ambangan sites dating to the 10th to 12th centuries in Butuan, Mindanao. On the other hand, the proximity of Borneo and Palawan also makes it likely that the tiger had colonized Palawan from Borneo in the Middle Pleistocene, about 420,000–620,000 years ago, during periods in which relative sea levels decreased to their lowest, at ca., by the expansion of ice sheets. Considering the ability of tigers to swim, it is possible that the tiger crossed the Balabac Strait when the distance between the islands of Borneo and Palawan was much less than today, during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, before the Last Glacial Maximumcirca 18,000 years ago. Twelve non-volant mammals in Palawan have close relatives in other islands of the Sunda Shelf, including Borneo. Thus the Palawan is considered to be the northeastern part of the biogeographic region of the Sunda Islands. It is believed that Palawan had a landmass of approximately, when the sea was lower than at current levels during the Last Glacial Maximum, and that the climate was dry and cool compared to now, with open woodland mostly constituting the vegetation, except perhaps for a few savannahs. Palawan was inhabited by a number of arboreal and terrestrial animals, such as pigs and deer, as indicated by an archaeozoological study of Ille Cave. At the end of the Pleistocene, the Balabac Strait widened due to the amelioration of the climate and subsequent rise of the sea level. The widening of the strait would have isolated the Palawan tigers and narrowed their available territory. The rise in sea level was such that almost 90% of Palawan got inundated, and its total landmass reduced to less than, by around 5,000 years ago. Moreover, in the early Holocene, closed canopy rainforest would have replaced the open seasonal woodland and savannah. As indicated by the Terminal Pleistocene archaeozoological record from Ille Cave, climatic and environmental change, besides predation by humans, put pressure populations of deer, which were likely important resources for the tiger. The number of deer thus declined after 5,000 years ago, and before the start of historical records. To put it simply, a significant decrease in habitat and food resources, isolation from other populations by increasing sea levels, and possibly hunting by humans likely caused the extinction of the Palawan tiger population, just as these or similar factors threaten existing populations of tigers. To date, no evidence exists for the tiger surviving in Palawan beyond 12,000 years ago.
Characteristics
It has been assumed that the Bornean tiger might have been rather small in size, similar to the Sumatran tiger. According to native people, this tiger is bigger than a clouded leopard, and largely brown in colour with faint stripes.
Sightings in the late 20th century have been alleged. In 1975, Douchan Gersi claimed to have seen a tiger in East Kalimantan. He took two photographs of the animal. These photos depict a tiger, but its origin remains unclear, and the authenticity of the photographs was doubted. It might have been an escaped captive one. In 1995, native people in Central Kalimantan claimed to have heard a tiger roar, and that they were able to distinguish between a tiger's roar and vocalisations of other animals.
