Life of Krishna the tigress
Updated On Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
Krishna or T-19 (middle) was one of the three sisters born in 2006 to Ranthambhore’s best known tigress called Machali. She was last of the four litters Machali had. The three sisters were numbered T 17, T 18 and T 19. From early on T 17 or Satara was the dominant cub. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
For nearly two years, the cubs stayed with their mother around the area near the lakes, one of the prettiest habitats of Ranthambhore national park. While T-17 started carving out her own territory by the end of 2007, T-18 and Krishna (in photo), stayed on with their mother till the end of summer 2008. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
Krishna, now 2, had to start carving out her own territory away from the lake and had no choice but to take over the “leftovers” of Machali’s territory – the Mandoop plateau, which during the summers has very few permanent water holes and a low prey density. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
Krishna had a huge territory by 2009, which included the Mandoop plateau, one of the largest plateaus of Ranthambhore national park. The Mandoop plateau is a huge area with an acute shortage of water holes, so Krishna had to expand her territory to include a few valleys that carve out of the plateau. By 2010, she had the largest territory among all the tigresses of Ranthambhore. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
Krishna gives birth to her first litter around Narsatka but soon shifted them to the Lahpur valley after displacing the old female that ruled over there. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
By the time her cubs were nearly a year old, she started making her first few forays into her more dominant sister T-17’s territory around the lakes. Surprisingly, she took over in just a few months, an amazing comeback for the runt of the litter. Within five years after being forced out, Krishna managed to get back to the same area where she was born and raised. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
By the 2013 monsoon, Krishna had completely taken over the territory around the area of the lakes. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
Krishna had her second litter of three cubs, two females and one male, in 2014 -- seen at a waterhole in the hot summers of Ranthambore. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST
Krishna brought up her second litter of three cubs around the area of the lakes. By the end of 2013, she started mating with Star male and had a second litter of three cubs before the summer of 2014. These three cubs were popularly named as Lightning (T-83), Arrowhead (T-84) -- both females and a male called Pacman (T-85). For the next two years, she brought up these three cubs around the lakes. (Aditya Dicky Singh)
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Updated on Jul 29, 2016 10:24 PM IST