Research overview: activity patterns and temporal niche of tigers

Tigers are largely crepuscular and nocturnal, though their activity shifts with prey, temperature, and human presence. This overview synthesizes camera-trap and telemetry studies showing peaks of movement around dusk and dawn and through the night, with reduced activity in the heat of the day, and increased nocturnality where human disturbance is high. It reviews how the temporal niche overlaps with that of prey and other predators, and how tigers may avoid people in time as well as space. The synthesis connects daily rhythms to hunting opportunity, thermoregulation, and risk avoidance. For wildlife observers it explains why tiger sightings cluster at the cooler ends of the day, why nocturnal hunting dominates in disturbed areas, and how the cat balances the demands of catching prey against the costs of heat and the need to avoid human contact.