TIGERS are known for being able to emit huge roars that are both terrifying and awe-inspiring. You would think it would be simply beneath such majestic animals to meow like a common kitty-cat but there's more to it than just that.
Is it true that it is physically impossible for a tiger to meow?
Verdict:
TRUE
Tigers cannot meow for the same reason that they cannot purr: their throats – and the various structures within – just aren't built the right way to let them do so.
Meowing in house cats is a social behaviour that they have developed for our benefit. House cats don't meow at each other, they only meow at us humans.
A meow is a way a kitten communicates with its mother and feral cats stop doing it once they reach adulthood.
House cats carry on doing it because they consider us to be more or less their parents.
On the other hand, tigers do not do it because they simply cannot.
House cats can meow because they and all the other cats in the subfamily felinae have a strong hyoid bone that confines their larynx near to the base of the skull and shortens their vocal folds, allowing them to meow and purr.
Tigers on the other hand have an elastic ligament called the epihyoideum that allows them to produce the lower (but louder) sound of a roar.
What a tiger can do, however, is chuff – a sound that only big cats can produce and make to their mother, their cubs, their mate or their favourite human.
If a tiger chuffs at you it means it is signalling it is happy you are around or that it is appreciative of what you are doing.
In other words, they use it more or less in the same way as a house cat uses its purrs or meows.
Below is a one-minute video of tigers chuffing.
References:
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
2. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.
3. https://www.livescience.com/
4. https://doi.org/10.1023%2FA%
