Research overview: skull morphometrics in tiger subspecies diagnosis

Before and alongside molecular work, tiger subspecies were assessed by measuring skulls and body proportions. This overview explains how craniometric analyses, comparing dimensions across museum specimens, were used to test whether tiger populations form discrete clusters. It covers the strengths of morphometrics, objectivity and applicability to historical specimens, and its weaknesses, including sensitivity to age, sex, and small sample sizes, which can manufacture or mask differences. The piece discusses how morphometric studies generally found continuous, overlapping variation with some regional trends, such as the small size of Sunda tigers, and how these results were weighed against genetic data in the subspecies debate. It illustrates the broader methodological contrast between morphology and molecules that runs through felid systematics.