title: Brock Lesnar

text: On July 1 it was reported that the winner of the Shane Carwin vs. Cain Velasquez fight at "UFC 104" would face Lesnar, but the match was scrapped and Lesnar was scheduled to defend the title against Shane Carwin at "UFC 106" on November 21. On October 2 Lesnar pulled out of his Carwin bout due to an illness. UFC President Dana White said Lesnar had been ill for three weeks, claiming he had never been this sick in his life and that it would take him a while to recover, therefore his fight with Carwin was rescheduled for "UFC 108" on January 2, 2010. Lesnar initially sought treatment in Canada, but later told reporters that he had received "Third World treatment" at a hospital in Brandon, Manitoba and that seeking better treatment in the United States saved his life. Lesnar went on to criticize Canadian health care further and stated that he shared his experience to speak "on the behalf of the doctors in the United States that don't want health care reform to happen".


title: Brock Lesnar

text: On November 4 it was confirmed that Lesnar had mononucleosis and that his bout with Carwin would have to wait a bit longer and the fight for Lesnar's heavyweight championship was canceled. On November 14 at the "UFC 105" post-fight conference, Dana White stated, "[Lesnar]'s not well and he's not going to be getting well anytime soon" and that an interim title match might need to be set up. In addition to mononucleosis, it was revealed that he had developed a serious case of diverticulitis, an intestinal disorder, which required surgery. After further diagnosis, Lesnar underwent surgery on November 16 to close a perforation in his intestine that had been leaking fecal matter into his abdomen, causing pain, abscesses and overtaxing his immune system to the point that he contracted mononucleosis. From the level of damage to Lesnar's system, the surgeon estimated that the intestinal condition had been ongoing for around a year.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In January 2010, Lesnar revealed on ESPN's "SportsCenter" that he was scheduled to make a return to the UFC in the summer. A match between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin took place on March 27 at "UFC 111" to determine the Interim Heavyweight Champion and Lesnar's next opponent. Shane Carwin defeated Mir via knockout in the first round, becoming the new Interim Champion. After the fight, Lesnar came into the ring and stated, "It was a good fight but he's wearing a belt that's a make-believe belt. I've got the real championship belt". Lesnar faced Carwin at "UFC 116 on July 3" to unify the heavyweight titles. Early in the first round, Carwin knocked Lesnar down with heavy punches, and continued landing ground and pound throughout the round, opening a cut on Lesnar's eye. In the next round, Carwin was noticeably fatigued and Lesnar scored a takedown, attained full mount, then move into side-control and finish the fight with an arm-triangle choke. With the victory, Lesnar became the undisputed UFC Heavyweight Champion, earning his first Submission of the Night and giving Carwin his first loss. The win also tied a UFC record for most consecutive successful UFC Heavyweight Championship defenses.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar's next defense was against undefeated top contender Cain Velasquez on October 23 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California at "UFC 121". Dana White announced via SportsNation that the UFC would bring back "UFC Primetime" to hype the fight. In the first round, Lesnar scored a takedown and land some heavy knees but eventually succumbed to Velasquez's superior striking and was finished by technical knockout late in the round.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar was advertised as a coach of "The Ultimate Fighter Season 13", opposite Junior dos Santos, with the two expected to fight on June 11 at UFC 131, but he was struck with another bout of diverticulitis and had to withdraw from the fight on May 12. He was replaced by Shane Carwin, who ended up losing against dos Santos. Lesnar underwent surgery on May 27 to help battle his problems with diverticulitis. Dana White said that he had a 12-inch piece of his colon removed.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In its May 2011 issue, "ESPN" magazine published a story listing the highest-paid athlete based on base salary and earnings for the most recent calendar year or most recent season in 30 sports. Lesnar topped the list for MMA at $5.3 million, which included his reported bout salaries and estimated pay-per-view bonuses.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In the summer of 2011, Lesnar announced that he was returning to action, stating, "I feel like a new man. Healthy. Strong. I feel like I used to feel". His return match was scheduled to be at "UFC 141" on December 30 in Las Vegas against former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem. Lesnar attempted to takedown Overeem but was unable and ate heavy body shots to his surgically repaired stomach, eventually being finished with a liver kick and punches. Lesnar then retired from MMA, mentioning his struggles with diverticulitis and saying "tonight was the last time you'll see me in the octagon".


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Speculation about a return to MMA lasted until March 24, 2015, when Lesnar revealed in an interview on "SportsCenter" that he had re-signed with WWE and officially closed the door on a return to MMA, even though he was offered a deal "ten times more" than what he had made previously in his MMA career. He further elaborated that, while he was training for months for a return to the UFC, he felt "physically great but something was lacking mentally". Lesnar added that "[he's] an older caveman now, so [he] makes smarter caveman decisions" and that he chose to sign with WWE instead of returning to MMA because he could "work part-time with full-time pay".


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Though Lesnar said he was "closing the door on MMA" in March 2015, UFC announced on June 4, 2016, that he would return at UFC 200 on July 9. WWE confirmed it had granted Lesnar "a one-off opportunity" to compete at UFC 200 before he returned to the company for SummerSlam on August 21. Lesnar dominated the first and third rounds, battering Hunt with ground and pound in the third to secure the unanimous decision win. He also was paid a UFC record $2.5 million purse. This record was broken at "UFC 202" by Conor McGregor, who was also the previous holder.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: On July 15, 2016, Lesnar was notified of a potential anti-doping policy violation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) stemming from an undisclosed banned substance in an out-of-competition sample collected on June 28. On July 19, a second test sample taken in-competition on July 9 was revealed as positive for the same banned substance discovered in the previous out-of-competition sample. On August 23, the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) confirmed that Lesnar had twice been tested positive for clomiphene and was suspended.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: On December 15, it was confirmed that Lesnar was fined $250,000 and suspended from competition for one year by the NSAC. He would be eligible to return in July 2017. As a result of the suspension, the result of his fight with Mark Hunt was overturned to a no contest. As of January 2019, Lesnar has yet to pay the fine.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: On February 14, 2017, it was reported that Lesnar had notified UFC he was retiring from MMA for the second time. On July 7, 2018, Lesnar stormed the cage after the main event fight at "UFC 226" and challenged the new UFC Heavyweight Champion, Daniel Cormier. On July 8, USADA confirmed that Lesnar had begun the process to get back into their drug-testing pool. UFC officials were reportedly targeting a bout between Lesnar and Daniel Cormier for the UFC Heavyweight Championship but Dana White claimed Lesnar told him he was "done" with MMA and the bout ultimately did not occur.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In September 2020, White said he could make a mega-fight between Lesnar and Jon Jones if both fighters wanted it. That same month, Bellator president Scott Coker expressed interest in booking a fight for Lesnar, hoping to make a match between Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko. In March 2022, Lesnar reiterated his retirement, stating "That door is closed, I'm too old."


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In 2003, WWE Home Video released a DVD chronicling Lesnar's career entitled "Brock Lesnar: Here Comes the Pain". It was re-released in 2012 as a three-disc DVD and two-disc Blu-ray collector's edition to tie in with Lesnar's WWE return. It was also expanded to include new matches and interviews. In 2016, a new home video was released on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as a collector's edition, called "Brock Lesnar: Eat. Sleep. Conquer. Repeat." and includes accomplishments from his second run in WWE.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar was featured on the covers of "Flex" and "Muscle & Fitness" magazine in 2004 and Minneapolis' "City Pages" in 2008. He is the cover athlete for the "WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain", "UFC Undisputed 2010" and "WWE 2K17" video games.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In 2009, Lesnar signed an endorsement deal with Dymatize Nutrition. A CD containing footage of Lesnar training was included with Dymatize's "Xpand" product.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar co-wrote an autobiography with Paul Heyman, titled "Death Clutch: My Story of Determination, Domination, and Survival", which was published by William Morrow and Company in 2011.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In a 2013 post on his blog, "Attack on Titan" author Hajime Isayama revealed that he drew inspiration from Lesnar for the character of the Armored Titan.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: In January 2001, Lesnar was arrested in Louisville, Kentucky for suspicion of possessing large amounts of illegal substances. The charges were dropped when it was discovered that the substances were legal hormones. His lawyer described it as a "vitamin type of thing".


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar had previously signed a non-compete clause in order to be released from his contract with WWE, which prohibited him from working for any other professional wrestling companies before June 2010. He challenged this ruling in court. WWE responded with a counterclaim after Lesnar breached the agreement by appearing at a New Japan Pro-Wrestling show in 2004. In July 2005, the two sides dropped their claims and entered negotiations to renew their relationship. WWE had offered Lesnar a contract, but on August 2, their official website reported that Lesnar had withdrawn from any involvement with the company. The lawsuit began to enter settlement talks on September 21, but did not get solved.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: On January 14, 2006, Judge Christopher Droney stated that unless WWE gave him a good argument between then and the 25th, he would rule in favor of Lesnar, giving him a summary judgment. This would have enabled Lesnar to work anywhere immediately. WWE was later granted a deadline postponement. On April 24, both parties reached a settlement. On June 12, a federal judge dismissed the case at the request of both legal parties.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: On December 15, 2011, Lesnar was charged with hunting infractions on a trip to Alberta on November 19, 2010. Two charges were dropped, but Lesnar pleaded guilty to the charge of improper tagging of an animal. He was fined $1,725 and given a six-month hunting suspension.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar married fellow WWE performer Rena Greek, better known as Sable, on May 6, 2006. They reside on a farm in Maryfield, Saskatchewan, having previously lived in Maple Plain, Minnesota. Together, they have two sons named Turk (born 2009) and Duke (born 2010). With his former fiancée, Nicole McClain, Lesnar also has twins who were born in 2002: a daughter named Mya Lynn (who has signed to compete in track & field at Arizona State) and a son named Luke, who plays ice hockey. He is also the stepfather of Greek's daughter, with her first husband.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: Lesnar is an intensely private individual who has expressed his disdain for the media; he rarely participates in interviews and avoids questions pertaining to his private life. He is a supporter of the Republican Party and a member of the National Rifle Association, making an appearance at the NRA's annual meeting in May 2011 to discuss his passion for hunting and his role as a spokesman for the Fusion Ammunition company. He holds both American and Canadian citizenship, and is a fan of the Winnipeg Jets; all three of his sons play ice hockey. He is also a fan of the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders.


title: Brock Lesnar

text: During his first run in WWE, Lesnar developed addictions to both alcohol and painkillers, allegedly drinking a bottle of vodka per day and taking hundreds of Vicodin pills per month to manage the pain caused by wear and tear on his body. He named his botched shooting star press at WrestleMania XIX as a particular source of pain. Lesnar claims that, as a result of his addiction and mental exhaustion, he does not remember the "entire two years" of his first WWE tenure.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus "Panthera". It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ungulates, such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat to support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years and then become independent, leaving their mother's home range to establish their own.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger was first scientifically described in 1758. It once ranged widely from the Eastern Anatolia Region in the west to the Amur River basin in the east, and in the south from the foothills of the Himalayas to Bali in the Sunda Islands. Since the early 20th century, tiger populations have lost at least 93% of their historic range and have been extirpated from Western and Central Asia, the islands of Java and Bali, and in large areas of Southeast and South Asia and China. What remains of the range where tigers still roam free is fragmented, stretching in spots from Siberian temperate forests to subtropical and tropical forests on the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and a single Indonesian island, Sumatra.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. As of 2015, the global wild tiger population was estimated to number between 3,062 and 3,948 mature individuals, with most populations living in small isolated pockets. India currently hosts the largest tiger population. Major reasons for population decline are habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching. Tigers are also victims of human–wildlife conflict, due to encroachment in countries with a high human population density.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger is among the most recognisable and popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It featured prominently in the ancient mythology and folklore of cultures throughout its historic range and continues to be depicted in modern films and literature, appearing on many flags, coats of arms and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and South Korea.


title: Tiger

text: The Middle English "tigre" and Old English "tigras" derive from Old French "tigre", from Latin "tigris".


title: Tiger

text: This was a borrowing of Classical Greek τίγρις 'tigris', a foreign borrowing of unknown origin meaning 'tiger' and the river Tigris.


title: Tiger

text: The origin may have been the Persian word "tigra" ('pointed or sharp') and the Avestan word "tigrhi" ('arrow'), perhaps referring to the speed of the tiger's leap, although these words are not known to have any meanings associated with tigers.


title: Tiger

text: The generic name "Panthera" is derived from the Latin word "panthera" and the Ancient Greek word πάνθηρ ('panther').


title: Tiger

text: In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the tiger in his work "Systema Naturae" and gave it the scientific name "Felis tigris". In 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus "Panthera" using the scientific name "Panthera tigris".


title: Tiger

text: Following Linnaeus's first descriptions of the species, several tiger specimens were described and proposed as subspecies. The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size, hence characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely "P. t. tigris" in mainland Asia, and "P. t. sondaica" in the Greater Sunda Islands.


title: Tiger

text: Results of craniological analysis of 111 tiger skulls from Southeast Asian range countries indicate that Sumatran tiger skulls differ from Indochinese and Javan tiger skulls, whereas Bali tiger skulls are similar in size to Javan tiger skulls. The authors proposed to classify the Sumatran and Javan tigers as distinct species, "P. sumatrae" and "P. sondaica", with the Bali tiger as subspecies "P. sondaica balica".


title: Tiger

text: In 2015, morphological, ecological, and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies were analysed in a combined approach. Results support distinction of the two evolutionary groups continental and Sunda tigers. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies, namely "P. t. tigris" comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South Chinese, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and "P. t. sondaica" comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations. The authors also noted that this reclassification will affect tiger conservation management. The nominate subspecies "P. t. tigris" constitutes two clades:


title: Tiger

text: One conservation specialist welcomed this proposal as it would make captive breeding programmes and future rewilding of zoo-born tigers easier. One geneticist was sceptical of this study and maintained that the currently recognised nine subspecies can be distinguished genetically.


title: Tiger

text: In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as "P. t. tigris", and those in the Sunda Islands as "P. t. sondaica". This two-subspecies view has been largely rejected by researchers. Results of a 2018 whole-genome sequencing of 32 specimens support six monophyletic tiger clades corresponding with the living subspecies and indicate that the most recent common ancestor lived about 110,000 years ago.


title: Tiger

text: The following tables are based on the classification of the species "Panthera tigris" provided in "Mammal Species of the World". It also reflects the classification used by the Cat Classification Task Force in 2017:


title: Tiger

text: The tiger's closest living relatives were previously thought to be the "Panthera" species lion, leopard and jaguar. Results of genetic analysis indicate that about 2.88 million years ago, the tiger and the snow leopard lineages diverged from the other "Panthera" species, and that both may be more closely related to each other than to the lion, leopard and jaguar.


title: Tiger

text: The geographic origin of the "Panthera" is most likely northern Central Asia. The tiger–snow leopard lineage dispersed in Southeast Asia during the Miocene.


title: Tiger

text: "Panthera zdanskyi" is considered to be a sister taxon of the modern tiger. It lived at the beginning of the Pleistocene about two million years ago, its fossil remains were excavated in Gansu of northwestern China. It was smaller and more "primitive", but functionally and ecologically similar to the modern tiger. It is disputed as to whether it had the striping pattern. Northwestern China is thought to be the origin of the tiger lineage. Tigers grew in size, possibly in response to adaptive radiations of prey species like deer and bovids, which may have occurred in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene.


title: Tiger

text: "Panthera tigris trinilensis" lived about and is known from fossils excavated near Trinil in Java. The Wanhsien, Ngandong, Trinil, and Japanese tigers became extinct in prehistoric times. Tigers reached India and northern Asia in the late Pleistocene, reaching eastern Beringia, Japan, and Sakhalin. Some fossil skulls are morphologically distinct from lion skulls, which could indicate tiger presence in Alaska during the last glacial period, about 100,000 years ago.


title: Tiger

text: Fossil teeth and bones found in Borneo were attributed to the Bornean tiger and date to about 13,745 to 3,000 years ago. It may have accessed Borneo, when the sea level was low during a glaciation period, and may have survived until about 200 years ago.


title: Tiger

text: In the Ille Cave on the island of Palawan, two articulated phalanx bones were found amidst an assemblage of other animal bones and stone tools. They were smaller than mainland tiger fossils, possibly due to insular dwarfism. It has been speculated that the tiger parts were either imported from elsewhere, or that the tiger colonised Palawan from Borneo before the Holocene. Fossil remains of tigers were also excavated in Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Sarawak dating to the Late Pliocene, Pleistocene and Early Holocene.


title: Tiger

text: Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that all living tigers had a common ancestor 108,000 to 72,000 years ago. The potential tiger range during the late Pleistocene and Holocene was predicted applying ecological niche modelling based on more than 500 tiger locality records combined with bioclimatic data. The resulting model shows a contiguous tiger range at the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating gene flow between tiger populations in mainland Asia. The Caspian tiger population was likely connected to the Bengal tiger population through corridors below elevations of in the Hindu Kush. The tiger populations on the Sunda Islands and mainland Asia were possibly separated during interglacial periods.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger's full genome sequence was published in 2013. It was found to have similar repeat composition to other cat genomes and an appreciably conserved synteny.


title: Tiger

text: Captive tigers were bred with lions to create hybrids called liger and tigon. They share physical and behavioural qualities of both parent species. Breeding hybrids is now discouraged due to the emphasis on conservation.


title: Tiger

text: The liger is a cross between a male lion and a tigress. Ligers are typically between in length, and weigh between or more. Because the lion sire passes on a growth-promoting gene, but the corresponding growth-inhibiting gene from the female tiger is absent, ligers grow far larger than either parent species.


title: Tiger

text: The less common tigon is a cross between a lioness and a male tiger. Because the male tiger does not pass on a growth-promoting gene and the lioness passes on a growth inhibiting gene, tigons are around the same size as their parents. Some females are fertile and have occasionally given birth to litigons when mated to a male Asiatic lion.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger has a muscular body with strong forelimbs, a large head and a tail that is about half the length of its body. Its pelage colouration varies between shades of orange with a white underside and distinctive vertical black stripes; the patterns of which are unique in each individual. Stripes are likely advantageous for camouflage in vegetation such as long grass with strong vertical patterns of light and shade. The tiger is one of only a few striped cat species; it is not known why spotted patterns and rosettes are the more common camouflage pattern among felids. The orange colour may also aid in camouflage as the tiger's prey are dichromats, and thus may perceive the cat as green and blended in with the vegetation.


title: Tiger

text: A tiger's coat pattern is still visible when it is shaved. This is not due to skin pigmentation, but to the stubble and hair follicles embedded in the skin. It has a mane-like heavy growth of fur around the neck and jaws and long whiskers, especially in males. The pupils are circular with yellow irises. The small, rounded ears have a prominent white spot on the back, surrounded by black. These spots are thought to play an important role in intraspecific communication.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger's skull is similar to a lion's skull, with the frontal region usually less depressed or flattened, and a slightly longer postorbital region. The lion skull shows broader nasal openings. Due to the variation in skull sizes of the two species, the structure of the lower jaw is a reliable indicator for their identification. The tiger has fairly stout teeth; its somewhat curved canines are the longest among living felids with a crown height of up to .


title: Tiger

text: There is notable sexual dimorphism between male and female tigers, with the latter being consistently smaller. The size difference between them is proportionally greater in the large tiger subspecies, with males weighing up to 1.7 times more than females. Males also have wider forepaw pads, enabling sex to be identified from tracks. It has been hypothesised that body size of different tiger populations may be correlated with climate and be explained by thermoregulation and Bergmann's rule, or by distribution and size of available prey species.


title: Tiger

text: Generally, males vary in total length from and weigh between with skull length ranging from . Females vary in total length from , weigh with skull length ranging from . In either sex, the tail represents about of the total length. The Bengal and Siberian tigers are amongst the tallest cats in shoulder height. They are also ranked among the biggest cats that have ever existed reaching weights of more than . The tigers of the Sunda islands are smaller and less heavy than tigers in mainland Asia, rarely exceeding in weight.


title: Tiger

text: There are three other colour variants – white, golden and nearly stripeless snow white – that are now virtually non-existent in the wild due to the reduction of wild tiger populations, but continue in captive populations. The white tiger has white fur and sepia-brown stripes. The golden tiger has a pale golden pelage with a blond tone and reddish-brown stripes. The snow white tiger is a morph with extremely faint stripes and a pale reddish-brown ringed tail. Both snow white and golden tigers are homozygous for CORIN gene mutations.


title: Tiger

text: The white tiger lacks pheomelanin (which creates the orange colour), and has dark sepia-brown stripes and blue eyes. This altered pigmentation is caused by a mutant gene that is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait, which is determined by a white locus. It is not an albino, as the dark pigments are scarcely affected. The mutation changes a single amino acid in the transporter protein SLC45A2. Both parents need to have the allele for whiteness to have white cubs.


title: Tiger

text: Between the early and mid 20th century, white tigers were recorded and shot in the Indian states of Odisha, Bihar, Assam and in the area of Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. The local maharaja started breeding tigers in the early 1950s and kept a white male tiger together with its normal-coloured daughter; they had white cubs.


title: Tiger

text: To preserve this recessive trait, only a few white individuals were used in captive breeding, which led to a high degree of inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is the main reason for many health problems of captive white tigers, including strabismus, stillbirth, deformities and premature death.


title: Tiger

text: The Tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned the breeding of white tigers, alleging they are of mixed ancestry and of unknown lineage. The genes responsible for white colouration are represented by 0.001% of the population. The disproportionate growth in numbers of white tigers points to inbreeding among homozygous recessive individuals. This would lead to inbreeding depression and loss of genetic variability.


title: Tiger

text: There are also records of pseudomelanic or black tigers which have thick stripes that merge. In Simlipal National Park, 37% of the tiger population has this condition, which has been linked to isolation and inbreeding.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger historically ranged from eastern Turkey and Transcaucasia to the coast of the Sea of Japan, and from South Asia across Southeast Asia to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali. Since the end of the last glacial period, it was probably restricted by periods of deep snow lasting longer than six months. Currently, it occurs in less than 6% of its historical range, as it has been extirpated from Southwest and Central Asia, large parts of Southeast and East Asia. It now mainly occurs in the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra and the Russian Far East. In China and Myanmar, breeding populations appear to rely on immigration from neighbouring countries while its status in the Korean Peninsula is unknown.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger is essentially associated with forest habitats. Tiger populations thrive where populations of wild cervids, bovids and suids are stable.


title: Tiger

text: Records in Central Asia indicate that it occurred foremost in Tugay riverine forests along the Atrek, Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Hari, Chu and Ili Rivers and their tributaries. In the Caucasus, it inhabited hilly and lowland forests.


title: Tiger

text: Historical records in Iran are known only from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and adjacent Alborz Mountains. In the Amur-Ussuri region, it inhabits Korean pine and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, where riparian forests provide food and water, and serve as dispersal corridors for both tiger and ungulates.


title: Tiger

text: On the Indian subcontinent, it inhabits mainly tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist evergreen forests, tropical dry forests and the swamp forests of the Sundarbans. In the Eastern Himalayas, tigers were documented in temperate forest up to an elevation of in Bhutan and of in the Mishmi Hills. In Myanmar, tigers are distributed across the country and among every province. The country is home to two tiger populations, Bengal and Indochinese tigers. In 1996, the composition of the two populations was 60% Bengal tigers and 40% Indochinese tigers. The natural ecological divide for these two populations is assumed to be the Irrawaddy River, but there is no scientific evidence for that hypothesis. DNA studies are needed to confirm it. Today, the presence of tigers was confirmed in the Hukawng Valley, Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary, and in two small areas in the Tanintharyi Region. The Tenasserim Hills is an important area, but forests are harvested there. In 2015, tigers were recorded by camera traps for the first time in the hill forests of Kayin State. In Thailand, it lives in deciduous and evergreen forests. In Laos, 14 tigers were documented in semi-evergreen and evergreen forest interspersed with grassland in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area during surveys from 2013 to 2017. In Sumatra, tiger populations range from lowland peat swamp forests to rugged montane forests.


title: Tiger

text: When not subject to human disturbance, the tiger is mainly diurnal. It does not often climb trees but cases have been recorded. It is a strong swimmer and often bathes in ponds, lakes and rivers, thus keeping cool in the heat of the day. Individuals can cross rivers up to wide and can swim up to in a day. During the 1980s, a tiger was observed frequently hunting prey through deep lake water in Ranthambhore National Park.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger is a long-ranging species, and individuals disperse over distances of up to to reach tiger populations in other areas. Radio-collared tigers in Chitwan National Park started dispersing from their natal areas earliest at the age of 19 months. Four females dispersed between , and 10 males between . None of them crossed open cultivated areas that were more than wide, but moved through forested habitat.


title: Tiger

text: Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives. They establish and maintain territories but have much wider home ranges within which they roam. Resident adults of either sex generally confine their movements to their home ranges, within which they satisfy their needs and those of their growing cubs. Individuals sharing the same area are aware of each other's movements and activities. The size of the home range mainly depends on prey abundance, geographic area and sex of the individual. In India, home ranges appear to be while in Manchuria, they range from . In Nepal, defended territories are recorded to be for males and for females.


title: Tiger

text: Young female tigers establish their first territories close to their mother's. The overlap between the female and her mother's territory reduces with time. Males, however, migrate further than their female counterparts and set out at a younger age to mark out their own area. A young male acquires territory either by seeking out an area devoid of other male tigers, or by living as a transient in another male's territory until he is older and strong enough to challenge the resident male. Young males seeking to establish themselves thereby comprise the highest mortality rate (30–35% per year) amongst adult tigers.


title: Tiger

text: To identify his territory, the male marks trees by spraying urine, anal gland secretions, marking trails with feces and marking trees or the ground with their claws. Females also use these "scrapes", urine and fecal markings. Scent markings of this type allow an individual to pick up information on another's identity, sex and reproductive status. Females in oestrus will signal their availability by scent marking more frequently and increasing their vocalisations.


title: Tiger

text: Although for the most part avoiding each other, tigers are not always territorial and relationships between individuals can be complex. An adult of either sex will sometimes share its kill with others, even with unrelated tigers. George Schaller observed a male share a kill with two females and four cubs. Unlike male lions, male tigers allow females and cubs to feed on the kill before the male is finished with it; all involved generally seem to behave amicably, in contrast to the competitive behaviour shown by a lion pride. Stephen Mills described a social feeding event in Ranthambore National Park:


title: Tiger

text: Male tigers are generally less tolerant of other males within their territories than females are of other females. Territory disputes are usually solved by intimidation rather than outright violence. Several such incidents have been observed in which the subordinate tiger yielded by rolling onto its back and showing its belly in a submissive posture. Once dominance has been established, a male may tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as they do not live in too close quarters. The most serious disputes tend to occur between two males competing for a female in oestrus, sometimes fighting to the death.


title: Tiger

text: Facial expressions include the "defense threat", where an individual bares its teeth, flattens its ears and its pupils enlarge. Both males and females show a flehmen response, a characteristic grimace, when sniffing urine markings, but flehmen is more often associated with males detecting the markings made by tigresses in oestrus.


title: Tiger

text: Tigers roar to signal their presence to other individuals over long distances. This vocalization is forced through an open mouth as it closes and can be heard away. They may roar three or four times in a row, and other tigers may respond in kind. When tense, tigers will moan, a sound similar to a roar but softer and made when the mouth is at least partially closed. Moaning can be heard away. For aggressive encounters, tigers growl, snarl and hiss. During an attack, an explosive "coughing roar" or "coughing snarl" is emitted though an open mouth and exposed teeth. Chuffing—soft, low-frequency snorting similar to purring in smaller cats—is heard in more friendly situations. Other vocalizations include grunts, woofs and miaows.


title: Tiger

text: In the wild, tigers mostly feed on large and medium-sized mammals, particularly ungulates weighing . Range-wide the most selected prey are sambar deer, Manchurian wapiti, barasingha and wild boar. Tigers are capable of taking down larger prey like adult gaur and wild water buffalo but will also opportunistically eat much smaller prey, such as monkeys, peafowl and other ground-based birds, hares, porcupines, and fish. They also prey on other predators, including dogs, leopards, pythons, bears, and crocodiles. Tigers generally do not prey on fully grown adult Asian elephants and Indian rhinoceros but incidents have been reported. More often, it is the more vulnerable small calves that are taken. When in close proximity to humans, tigers will also sometimes prey on such domestic livestock as cattle, horses, and donkeys. Although almost exclusively carnivorous, tigers will occasionally eat vegetation for dietary fibre such as fruit of the slow match tree.


title: Tiger

text: Tigers are thought to be mainly nocturnal predators, but in areas where humans are absent, remote-controlled, hidden camera traps recorded them hunting in daylight. They generally hunt alone and ambush their prey as most other cats do, overpowering them from any angle, using their body size and strength to knock the prey off balance. Successful hunts usually require the tiger to almost simultaneously leap onto its quarry, knock it over, and grab the throat or nape with its teeth. Despite their large size, tigers can reach speeds of about but only in short bursts; consequently, tigers must be close to their prey before they break cover. If the prey senses the tiger's presence before this, the tiger usually abandons the hunt rather than give chase or battle pre-alerted prey. Horizontal leaps of up to have been reported, although leaps of around half this distance are more typical. One in 2 to 20 hunts, including stalking near potential prey, ends in a successful kill.


title: Tiger

text: When hunting larger animals, tigers prefer to bite the throat and use their powerful forelimbs to hold onto the prey, often simultaneously wrestling it to the ground. The tiger remains latched onto the neck until its target dies of strangulation. By this method, gaurs and water buffaloes weighing over a ton have been killed by tigers weighing about a sixth as much. Although they can kill healthy adults, tigers often select the calves or infirm of very large species. Healthy adult prey of this type can be dangerous to tackle, as long, strong horns, legs and tusks are all potentially fatal to the tiger. No other extant land predator routinely takes on prey this large on its own.


title: Tiger

text: With small prey such as monkeys and hares, the tiger bites the nape, often breaking the spinal cord, piercing the windpipe, or severing the jugular vein or common carotid artery. Rarely, tigers have been observed to kill prey by swiping with their paws, which are powerful enough to smash the skulls of domestic cattle, and break the backs of sloth bears.


title: Tiger

text: After killing their prey, tigers sometimes drag it to conceal it in vegetation, grasping with their mouths at the site of the killing bite. This, too, can require great physical strength. In one case, after it had killed an adult gaur, a tiger was observed to drag the massive carcass over a distance of . When 13 men simultaneously tried to drag the same carcass later, they were unable to move it. An adult tiger can go for up to two weeks without eating, then gorge on of flesh at one time. In captivity, adult tigers are fed of meat a day.


title: Tiger

text: Tigers usually prefer to eat self-killed prey, but eat carrion in times of scarcity and also steal prey from other large carnivores. Although predators typically avoid one another, if a prize is under dispute or a serious competitor is encountered, displays of aggression are common. If these fail, the conflicts may turn violent; tigers may kill or even prey on competitors such as leopards, dholes, striped hyenas, wolves, bears, pythons, and mugger crocodiles on occasion. Crocodiles, bears, and large packs of dholes may win conflicts with tigers, and crocodiles and bears can even kill them.


title: Tiger

text: The considerably smaller leopard avoids competition from tigers by hunting at different times of the day and hunting different prey. In India's Nagarhole National Park, most prey selected by leopards were from against a preference for heavier prey by tigers. The average prey weight in the two respective big cats in India was against . With relatively abundant prey, tigers and leopards were seen to successfully coexist without competitive exclusion or interspecies dominance hierarchies that may be more common to the African savanna, where the leopard lives beside the lion. Golden jackals may scavenge on tiger kills. Tigers appear to inhabit the deep parts of a forest while smaller predators like leopards and dholes are pushed closer to the fringes.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger mates all year round, but most cubs are born between March and June, with a second peak in September. Gestation ranges from 93 to 114 days, with an average of 103 to 105 days. A female is only receptive for three to six days. Mating is frequent and noisy during that time. The female gives birth in a sheltered location such as in tall grass, in a dense thicket, cave or rocky crevice. The father generally takes no part in rearing. Litters consist of two or three cubs, rarely as many as six. Cubs weigh from each at birth, and are born with eyes closed. They open their eyes when they are six to 14 days old. Their milk teeth break through at the age of about two weeks. They start to eat meat at the age of eight weeks. At around this time, females usually shift them to a new den. They make short ventures with their mother, although they do not travel with her as she roams her territory until they are older. Females lactate for five to six months. Around the time they are weaned, they start to accompany their mother on territorial walks and are taught how to hunt.


title: Tiger

text: A dominant cub emerges in most litters, usually a male. The dominant cub is more active than its siblings and takes the lead in their play, eventually leaving its mother and becoming independent earlier. The cubs start hunting on their own earliest at the age of 11 months, and become independent around 18 to 20 months of age. They separate from their mother at the age of two to two and a half years, but continue to grow until the age of five years. Young females reach sexual maturity at three to four years, whereas males at four to five years. Unrelated wandering male tigers often kill cubs to make the female receptive, since the tigress may give birth to another litter within five months if the cubs of the previous litter are lost. The mortality rate of tiger cubs is about 50% in the first two years. Few other predators attack tiger cubs due to the diligence and ferocity of the mother. Apart from humans and other tigers, common causes of cub mortality are starvation, freezing, and accidents. Generation length of the tiger is about eight years.


title: Tiger

text: Occasionally, male tigers participate in raising cubs, usually their own, but this is extremely rare and not always well understood. In May 2015, Amur tigers were photographed by camera traps in the Sikhote-Alin Nature Reserve. The photos show a male Amur tiger pass by, followed by a female and three cubs within the span of about two minutes.


title: Tiger

text: In Ranthambore, a male Bengal tiger raised and defended two orphaned female cubs after their mother had died of illness. The cubs remained under his care, he supplied them with food, protected them from his rival and sister, and apparently also trained them.


title: Tiger

text: In the 1990s, a new approach to tiger conservation was developed: Tiger Conservation Units (TCUs), which are blocks of habitat that have the potential to host tiger populations in 15 habitat types within five bioregions. Altogether 143 TCUs were identified and prioritized based on size and integrity of habitat, poaching pressure and population status. They range in size from .


title: Tiger

text: In 2016, an estimate of a global wild tiger population of approximately 3,890 individuals was presented during the Third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. The WWF subsequently declared that the world's count of wild tigers had risen for the first time in a century.


title: Tiger

text: Major threats to the tiger include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching for fur and body parts, which have simultaneously greatly reduced tiger populations in the wild. In India, only 11% of the historical tiger habitat remains due to habitat fragmentation. Demand for tiger parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine has also been cited as a major threat to tiger populations. Some estimates suggest that there are fewer than 2,500 mature breeding individuals, with no subpopulation containing more than 250 mature breeding individuals.


title: Tiger

text: India is home to the world's largest population of wild tigers. A 2014 census estimated a population of 2,226, a 30% increase since 2011. On International Tiger Day 2019, the 'Tiger Estimation Report 2018' was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report estimates a population of 2967 tigers in India with 25% increase since 2014. Modi said "India is one of the safest habitats for tigers as it has achieved the target of doubling the tiger population from 1411 in 2011 to 2967 in 2019".


title: Tiger

text: In 1973, India's "Project Tiger", started by Indira Gandhi, established numerous tiger reserves. The project was credited with tripling the number of wild Bengal tigers from some 1,200 in 1973 to over 3,500 in the 1990s, but a 2007 census showed that numbers had dropped back to about 1,400 tigers because of poaching. Following the report, the Indian government pledged $153 million to the initiative, set up measures to combat poaching, promised funds to relocate up to 200,000 villagers in order to reduce human-tiger interactions, and set up eight new tiger reserves. India also reintroduced tigers to the Sariska Tiger Reserve and by 2009 it was claimed that poaching had been effectively countered at Ranthambore National Park.


title: Tiger

text: In the 1940s, the Siberian tiger was on the brink of extinction with only about 40 animals remaining in the wild in Russia. As a result, anti-poaching controls were put in place by the Soviet Union and a network of protected zones (zapovedniks) were instituted, leading to a rise in the population to several hundred. Poaching again became a problem in the 1990s, when the economy of Russia collapsed. The major obstacle in preserving the species is the enormous territory individual tigers require, up to needed by a single female and more for a single male. Current conservation efforts are led by local governments and NGO's in concert with international organisations, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Conservation Society. The competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters to tolerate the big cats. Tigers have less impact on ungulate populations than do wolves, and are effective in controlling the latter's numbers. In 2005, there were thought to be about 360 animals in Russia, though these exhibited little genetic diversity. However, in a decade later, the Siberian tiger census was estimated from 480 to 540 individuals.


title: Tiger

text: In China, tigers became the target of large-scale 'anti-pest' campaigns in the early 1950s, where suitable habitats were fragmented following deforestation and resettlement of people to rural areas, who hunted tigers and prey species. Though tiger hunting was prohibited in 1977, the population continued to decline and is considered extinct in southern China since 2001. Having earlier rejected the Western-led environmentalist movement, China changed its stance in the 1980s and became a party to the CITES treaty. By 1993 it had banned the trade in tiger parts, and this diminished the use of tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicine. The Tibetan people's trade in tiger skins has also been a threat to tigers. The pelts were used in clothing, tiger-skin "chuba" being worn as fashion. In 2006 the 14th Dalai Lama was persuaded to take up the issue. Since then there has been a change of attitude, with some Tibetans publicly burning their chubas.


title: Tiger

text: In 1994, the Indonesian Sumatran Tiger Conservation Strategy addressed the potential crisis that tigers faced in Sumatra. The Sumatran Tiger Project (STP) was initiated in June 1995 in and around the Way Kambas National Park to ensure the long-term viability of wild Sumatran tigers and to accumulate data on tiger life-history characteristics vital for the management of wild populations. By August 1999, the teams of the STP had evaluated 52 sites of potential tiger habitat in Lampung Province, of which only 15 these were intact enough to contain tigers. In the framework of the STP a community-based conservation programme was initiated to document the tiger-human dimension in the park to enable conservation authorities to resolve tiger-human conflicts based on a comprehensive database rather than anecdotes and opinions.


title: Tiger

text: The Wildlife Conservation Society and Panthera Corporation formed the collaboration "Tigers Forever", with field sites including the world's largest tiger reserve, the Hukaung Valley in Myanmar. Other reserves were in the Western Ghats in India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the Russian Far East covering in total about .


title: Tiger

text: Tigers have been studied in the wild using a variety of techniques. Tiger population have been estimated using plaster casts of their pugmarks, although this method was criticized as being inaccurate. More recent techniques include the use of camera traps and studies of DNA from tiger scat, while radio-collaring has been used to track tigers in the wild. Tiger spray has been found to be just as good, or better, as a source of DNA than scat.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger has been one of the most sought after game animals of Asia. Tiger hunting took place on a large scale in the early 19th and 20th centuries, being a recognised and admired sport by the British in colonial India, the maharajas and aristocratic class of the erstwhile princely states of pre-independence India. A single maharaja or English hunter could claim to kill over a hundred tigers in their hunting career. Over 80,000 tigers were slaughtered in just 50 years spanning from 1875 to 1925 in British-ruled India. Tiger hunting was done by some hunters on foot; others sat up on "machans" with a goat or buffalo tied out as bait; yet others on elephant-back. King George V on his visit to Colonial India in 1911 killed 39 tigers in a matter of 10 days One of these is on display at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.


title: Tiger

text: Historically, tigers have been hunted at a large scale so their famous striped skins could be collected. The trade in tiger skins peaked in the 1960s, just before international conservation efforts took effect. By 1977, a tiger skin in an English market was considered to be worth US$4,250.


title: Tiger

text: Tiger parts are commonly used as amulets in South and Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, the fossils in Palawan were found besides stone tools. This, besides the evidence for cuts on the bones, and the use of fire, suggests that early humans had accumulated the bones, and 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 canines were found in Ambangan sites dating to the 10th to 12th centuries in Butuan, Mindanao.


title: Tiger

text: Many people in China and other parts of Asia have a belief that various tiger parts have medicinal properties, including as pain killers and aphrodisiacs. There is no scientific evidence to support these beliefs. The use of tiger parts in pharmaceutical drugs in China is already banned, and the government has made some offences in connection with tiger poaching punishable by death. Furthermore, all trade in tiger parts is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and a domestic trade ban has been in place in China since 1993.


title: Tiger

text: However, the trading of tiger parts in Asia has become a major black market industry and governmental and conservation attempts to stop it have been ineffective to date. Almost all black marketers engaged in the trade are based in China and have either been shipped and sold within in their own country or into Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. The Chinese subspecies was almost completely decimated by killing for commerce due to both the parts and skin trades in the 1950s through the 1970s. Contributing to the illegal trade, there are a number of tiger farms in the country specialising in breeding them for profit. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 captive-bred, semi-tame animals live in these farms today. However, many tigers for traditional medicine black market are wild ones shot or snared by poachers and may be caught anywhere in the tiger's remaining range (from Siberia to India to the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra). In the Asian black market, a tiger penis can be worth the equivalent of around $300 U.S. dollars. In the years of 1990 through 1992, 27 million products with tiger derivatives were found. In July 2014 at an international convention on endangered species in Geneva, Switzerland, a Chinese representative admitted for the first time his government was aware trading in tiger skins was occurring in China.


title: Tiger

text: Wild tigers that have had no prior contact with humans actively avoid interactions with them. However, tigers cause more human deaths through direct attack than any other wild mammal. Attacks are occasionally provoked, as tigers lash out after being injured while they themselves are hunted. Attacks can be provoked accidentally, as when a human surprises a tiger or inadvertently comes between a mother and her young, or as in a case in rural India when a postman startled a tiger, used to seeing him on foot, by riding a bicycle. Occasionally tigers come to view people as prey. Such attacks are most common in areas where population growth, logging, and farming have put pressure on tiger habitats and reduced their wild prey. Most man-eating tigers are old, missing teeth, and unable to capture their preferred prey. For example, the Champawat Tiger, a tigress found in Nepal and then India, had two broken canines. She was responsible for an estimated 430 human deaths, the most attacks known to be perpetrated by a single wild animal, by the time she was shot in 1907 by Jim Corbett. According to Corbett, tiger attacks on humans are normally in daytime, when people are working outdoors and are not keeping watch. Early writings tend to describe man-eating tigers as cowardly because of their ambush tactics.


title: Tiger

text: Man-eaters have been a particular problem in recent decades in India and Bangladesh, especially in Kumaon, Garhwal and the Sundarbans mangrove swamps of Bengal, where some healthy tigers have hunted humans. Because of rapid habitat loss attributed to climate change, tiger attacks have increased in the Sundarbans. The Sundarbans area had 129 human deaths from tigers from 1969 to 1971. In the 10 years prior to that period, about 100 attacks per year in the Sundarbans, with a high of around 430 in some years of the 1960s. Unusually, in some years in the Sundarbans, more humans are killed by tigers than vice versa. In 1972, India's production of honey and beeswax dropped by 50% when at least 29 people who gathered these materials were devoured. In 1986 in the Sundarbans, since tigers almost always attack from the rear, masks with human faces were worn on the back of the head, on the theory that tigers usually do not attack if seen by their prey. This decreased the number of attacks only temporarily. All other means to prevent attacks, such as providing more prey or using electrified human dummies, did not work as well.


title: Tiger

text: In Ancient Roman times, tigers were kept in menageries and amphitheatres to be exhibited, trained and paraded, and were often provoked to fight gladiators and other exotic beasts. Since the 17th century, tigers, being rare and ferocious, were sought after to keep at European castles as symbols of their owners' power. Tigers became central zoo and circus exhibits in the 18th century: a tiger could cost up to 4,000 francs in France (for comparison, a professor of the Beaux-Arts at Lyons earned only 3,000 francs a year), or up to $3,500 in the United States, where a lion cost no more than $1,000.


title: Tiger

text: In 2007, over 4,000 captive tigers lived in China, of which 3,000 were held by about 20 larger facilities, with the rest held by some 200 smaller facilities. In 2011, 468 facilities in the USA kept 2,884 tigers. Nineteen US states banned private ownership of tigers, fifteen require a license, and sixteen states have no regulation. Genetic ancestry of 105 captive tigers from fourteen countries and regions showed that forty-nine animals belonged distinctly to five subspecies; fifty-two animals had mixed subspecies origins. Many Siberian tigers in zoos today are actually the result of crosses with Bengal tigers.


title: Tiger

text: Tigers and their superlative qualities have been a source of fascination for mankind since ancient times, and they are routinely visible as important cultural and media motifs. They are also considered one of the charismatic megafauna, and are used as the face of conservation campaigns worldwide. In a 2004 online poll conducted by cable television channel Animal Planet, involving more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries, the tiger was voted the world's favourite animal with 21% of the vote, narrowly beating the dog.


title: Tiger

text: In Chinese mythology and culture, the tiger is one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. In Chinese art, the tiger is depicted as an earth symbol and equal rival of the Chinese dragon – the two representing matter and spirit respectively. The Southern Chinese martial art Hung Ga is based on the movements of the tiger and the crane. In Imperial China, a tiger was the personification of war and often represented the highest army general (or present day defense secretary), while the emperor and empress were represented by a dragon and phoenix, respectively. The White Tiger () is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. It is sometimes called the White Tiger of the West (), and it represents the west and the autumn season.


title: Tiger

text: The tiger's tail appears in stories from countries including China and Korea, it being generally inadvisable to grasp a tiger by the tail. In Korean myth and culture, the tiger is regarded as a guardian that drives away evil spirits and a sacred creature that brings good luck – the symbol of courage and absolute power. For the people who live in and around the forests of Korea, the tiger considered the symbol of the Mountain Spirit or King of mountain animals. So, Koreans also called the tigers "San Gun" (산군) means Mountain Lord.


title: Tiger

text: In Buddhism, the tiger is one of the Three Senseless Creatures, symbolising anger, with the monkey representing greed and the deer lovesickness. The Tungusic peoples considered the Siberian tiger a near-deity and often referred to it as "Grandfather" or "Old man". The Udege and Nanai called it "Amba". The Manchu considered the Siberian tiger as "Hu Lin," the king. In Hinduism, the god Shiva wears and sits on tiger skin. The ten-armed warrior goddess Durga rides the tigress (or lioness) Damon into battle. In southern India the god Ayyappan was associated with a tiger. Dingu-Aneni is the god in North-East India is also associated with tiger. The weretiger replaces the werewolf in shapeshifting folklore in Asia; in India they were evil sorcerers, while in Indonesia and Malaysia they were somewhat more benign. In Greco-Roman tradition, the tiger was depicted being ridden by the god Dionysus.


title: Tiger

text: In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the tiger is fiercer and more ruthless than the lion. William Blake's poem in his "Songs of Experience" (1794), titled "The Tyger", portrays the tiger as a menacing and fearful animal. In Rudyard Kipling's 1894 "The Jungle Book", the tiger Shere Khan is the mortal enemy of the human protagonist Mowgli. Yann Martel's 2001 Booker Prize winning novel "Life of Pi", features the title character surviving shipwreck for months on a small boat with a large Bengal tiger while avoiding being eaten. The story was adapted in Ang Lee's 2012 feature film of the same name.


title: Tiger

text: Friendly tiger characters include Tigger in A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and Hobbes of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes", both represented as stuffed animals come to life. Tony the Tiger is a famous mascot for Kellogg's breakfast cereal Frosted Flakes, known for his catchphrase "They're Gr-r-reat!".


title: Tiger

text: The tiger is one of the animals displayed on the Pashupati seal of the Indus Valley civilisation. The tiger was the emblem of the Chola Dynasty and was depicted on coins, seals and banners. The seals of several Chola copper coins show the tiger, the Pandyan emblem fish and the Chera emblem bow, indicating that the Cholas had achieved political supremacy over the latter two dynasties. Gold coins found in Kavilayadavalli in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh have motifs of the tiger, bow and some indistinct marks. The tiger symbol of Chola Empire was later adopted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the tiger became a symbol of the unrecognised state of Tamil Eelam and Tamil independence movement. The Bengal tiger is the national animal of India and Bangladesh. The Malaysian tiger is the national animal of Malaysia. The Siberian tiger is the national animal of South Korea. The Tiger is featured on the logo of the Delhi Capitals IPL team.


title: Tiger

text: In European heraldry, the tyger, a depiction of a tiger as imagined by European artists, is among the creatures used in charges and supporters. This creature has several notable differences from real tigers, lacking stripes and having a leonine tufted tail and a head terminating in large, pointed jaws. A more realistic tiger entered the heraldic armory through the British Empire's expansion into Asia, and is referred to as the Bengal tiger to distinguish it from its older counterpart. The Bengal tiger is not a common creature in heraldry, but is used as a supporter in the arms of Bombay and emblazoned on the shield of the University of Madras.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American sitcom that premiered on FX on August 4, 2005. It moved to FXX beginning with the ninth season in 2013. The show was created by Rob McElhenney, who developed it with Glenn Howerton. It is executive produced and primarily written by McElhenney, Howerton, and Charlie Day, who star alongside Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito. The series follows the exploits of "The Gang", a group of narcissistic, sociopathic friends who run the Irish dive bar Paddy's Pub in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but spend most of their free time drinking, scheming, arguing amongst themselves, and plotting elaborate cons against others (and at times each other) for personal benefit, financial gain, revenge, or simply out of boredom, while belittling, berating, and manipulating each other in the process at seemingly any opportunity.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The 14th season concluded in November 2019, and was renewed for a 15th season in May 2020, which premiered on December 1, 2021. This resulted in it having more seasons than any other American live-action comedy series, replacing "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", which ran for 14 seasons (435 episodes) between 1952 and 1966. In December 2020, the series was renewed for a total of four additional seasons, bringing it to 18 seasons.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The show has received critical acclaim, with many lauding the cast performances and dark humor. It has amassed a large cult following.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The series follows a group of misfit, narcissistic sociopaths, referred to as "The Gang", who run a meager, unsuccessful Irish bar called Paddy's Pub in the neighborhood of South Philadelphia. The Gang originally consists of janitor Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day), bouncer Mac (Rob McElhenney), and bartender Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton), the three of whom also own Paddy's Pub, in addition to Dennis' twin sister Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), a struggling actress who works as a waitress there. In season 2, they are joined by Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), an eccentric millionaire who takes over most of the ownership of the bar, and is also the neglectful father of the Reynolds twins, who soon becomes the financial catalyst for the Gang, often funding many of the Gang's over-complicated plots, while simultaneously succumbing to the brazen depravity of the group.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: Each member of The Gang exhibits unethical behavior and anti-social traits such as extreme selfishness, pathological dishonesty, narcissism, aggression, excessive drinking and substance abuse, unregulated emotions, cruelty, and absolutely no regard for the people around them, while also displaying acute codependency, stupidity, and a surprising lack of awareness of basic social norms. The comedy of the show emerges from these extreme character traits resulting in conflicts that lead The Gang into absurd, dark and painfully embarrassing situations, typically ending with them getting their comeuppance, but never learning their lesson. This allows the show to mine a variety of socio-political and economic issues for satire and dark humor, while keeping the characters in a state of relative stasis conducive to the long-running sitcom format.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: Episodes usually find The Gang hatching elaborate schemes and regularly conspiring, against both outsiders and one another, for personal gain, revenge, or simply schadenfreude. They habitually inflict physical and psychological pain on anyone who crosses their path, even each other, yet always return to the status quo at Paddy's Pub because they have alienated the rest of society and have only each other's company in the end.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The Gang has no sense of shame when attempting to get what they want and often engage in activities that others would find humiliating, disgusting, or shocking. Some of these situations include pretending to be disabled and becoming addicted to crack cocaine in order to qualify for welfare, attempted cannibalism, kidnapping, waterboarding, blackface, blackmail, stalking, grave robbing, hiding naked inside a couch to eavesdrop on people, tricking a man into giving his daughter a lap dance, spiking a punch bowl at a wedding with bath salts, foraging naked in the sewers for rings and coins; impersonating police officers to extort civilians; creating a cult; secretly feeding someone their dead pet; plugging their open wounds with trash; setting a room full of people on fire and locking the door shut; taking out life insurance on a suicidal person; and pretending to have AIDS in order to get priority access to water park rides.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: During the Season 7 episode "The Gang Gets Trapped", in which The Gang breaks into a family's home and has to hide from them when they return, an angry monologue by Dennis captures the essence of The Gang's "modus operandi":


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: Except for certain rare occasions, Paddy's Pub does not do well financially. There are often only a few customers inside at a time, if any, and those present sometimes "appear to be serving themselves." Passersby avoid the bar because of the numerous stabbings that have occurred there. The Gang has been known to close Paddy's for extended periods without warning. When the bar is open, they shirk their respective jobs' responsibilities and choose to drink instead. Paddy's is only able to stay in business because of Frank's financial backing, government bailouts and tax fraud. In addition, money is saved through paying Dee less than minimum wage, and, at one point, "getting some slaves."


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The show features a core cast of five characters (The Gang) and a recurring cast of colorful side characters, including the Waitress, Cricket, the McPoyles, the Ponderosas, the Lawyer and various family members like Mrs Kelly, Mrs Mac and Uncle Jack Kelly, who cross paths and interact with the Gang in increasingly unhinged ways as the show progresses.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney first met each other while auditioning for "Tuck Everlasting" and other projects in New York City and, later, in Los Angeles — they were going up for similar parts, moved to Los Angeles around the same time and even had the same manager Nick Frenkel. Day and Howerton, notably, got to know each other on a car ride back from testing for "That '80s Show" in late 2001, when Howerton was cast as Corey Howard and Day did not get the part of his best friend. While living in New York, Day had been making comedic home movies with Jimmi Simpson, Nate Mooney, David Hornsby and Logan Marshall-Green, his friends from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, many of whom would later go on to be involved with "Sunny", which inspired McElhenney and Howerton to want to make short films of their own with him. McElhenney, in particular, had been writing screenplays between jobs and since none of them were picked up, decided to shoot them himself with Howerton, Day and other actor friends. The decision to make their own short films was further influenced by the release of the affordable Panasonic DVX100A digital camera as well as the accessible, low-budget look of "The Office" (UK) and "Curb Your Enthusiasm".


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" grew out of an idea for a short film conceived late one night by McElhenney "where a friend came over to another friend's house to get sugar, and the friend tells him he has cancer, and all the guy can think about is getting his sugar and getting out of there." He wrote the scene down before taking it to Howerton the next day to flesh it out and work on making it comedic. Day was soon roped in and the first script was written, featuring three struggling actors in LA named Charlie, Glenn and Mac, and the ensuing awkwardness around Charlie's cancer diagnosis. The home movies were shot and reshot multiple times, initially with Hornsby playing the Mac character and McElhenney behind the camera as director. It was via this process that McElhenney, Day and Howerton learnt the basics of shooting, editing and other aspects of film-making. The three then developed a second "episode" of their home movie series, this time focused on the cringe humor from Mac's sense of shame around his relationship with Carmen, a transgender woman. At this point, it became clear that the home movies had potential as a television series, instead of the short films they were envisioned as originally. Both parts would eventually end up in the episode "Charlie Has Cancer".


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The home movie was titled "It's Always Sunny on TV" after the a-ha song "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.". Howerton had been listening to the album "Hunting High and Low" (1985) while stretching at a Crunch gym in West Hollywood. It was later changed to reflect that, in the unaired pilot, the gang had been rewritten as bar owners in Philadelphia, instead of actors in LA.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: This was then developed into a pilot called "It's Always Sunny on TV" and was shot on a digital camcorder and filmed in the actors' own apartments. They expanded the central cast to four people living in Los Angeles, "a group of best friends who care so little for each other", Howerton said.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: It was believed the pilot was shot with a budget of just $200, but Day would later comment, "We shot it for nothing... I don't know where this $200 came from... We were a bunch of kids with cameras running around shooting each other and [the] next thing you know, we're eleven years in and we're still doing the show." This pilot was shopped by the actors around various studios, their pitch being simply showing the DVD of the pilot to executives. After viewing the pilot, FX Network ordered the first season. The show was budgeted at $450,000 an episode, less than a third of a network standard, using Panasonic's DVX100 MiniDV prosumer video camera. The original concept had "the gang" being out-of-work actors with the theme song being a cha-cha version of "Hooray for Hollywood"; however there were too many shows at the time with a similar premise. "The network came to us and said, 'We don't want a show about actors,' and we said, 'Fine, let's put it somewhere else,'" McElhenney explained. "I'm from Philly, let's put it in Philly, and we'll make it about a bar, because that's a job where you can have lots of free time and still have income that could explain how these people can sustain themselves." Prior to Kaitlin Olson joining the show, the character Sweet Dee was originally played by Jordan Reid, who at the time was the girlfriend of McElhenney, but was recast after they broke up.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: After the first season, FX executives were worried about the show's low ratings and demanded that changes be made to the cast. "So, John Landgraf, who's the president of FX, he called me in for a meeting and was like, 'Hey, no one's watching the show, but we love it,'" McElhenney recalled. "'We wanna keep it on, but we don't have any money for marketing, and we need to add somebody with some panache that we can hopefully parlay into some public relations story, just so we can get people talking.'" FX began suggesting actors such as Danny DeVito that could boost the show's profile. "It's not that we were reticent to the idea of adding Danny to the show," Howerton recalled, "It's that we were reticent to add a name to the show. You know, because we kinda liked that we were no-names and it was this weird, small thing, you know." Initially, McElhenney refused, saying "No, I just don't think we wanna do that, and they were like, 'Oh OK, well, you know... the show's over.'" Realizing they needed to change the trajectory of the show to please the network, McElhenney, Howerton, and Day became open to adding a new cast member who was familiar to the public. However, McElhenney, Howerton, and Day were hesitant at first since they thought they would "ruin the show", particularly Day. Devito later joined the cast in the first episode of the second season, playing the father of Dennis and Dee.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The show is shot in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The exterior of Paddy's Pub is located at the Starkman Building on 544 Mateo Street in Los Angeles.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: On April 1, 2016, the series was renewed for a thirteenth and fourteenth season, which matched "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" with the most seasons for a live-action sitcom in American television history. On April 9, 2020, McElhenney announced that writing had begun for the fifteenth season. Filming for the season began in May 2021 and wrapped that October.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The first season ran for seven episodes with the finale airing September 15, 2005. According to McElhenney, word of mouth on the show was good enough for FX to renew it for a second season, which ran from June 29 to August 17, 2006. Reruns of edited first-season episodes began airing on FX's then-parent network, Fox, in June 2006, for a planned three-episode run—"The Gang Finds a Dead Guy," "Gun Fever" (which was renamed "Gun Control") and "Charlie Gets Molested" were shown. The show was not aired on broadcast television again until 2011, when FX began offering it for syndication.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The third season ran from September 13 to November 15, 2007. On March 5, 2008, FX renewed "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" for a fourth season. On July 15, 2008, it was reported that FX had ordered 39 additional episodes of the series, produced as seasons five through seven of the show. All five main cast members were secured for the entire scheduled run. The fifth season ran from September 17 to December 10, 2009. On May 31, 2010, Comedy Central began airing reruns. WGN America also began broadcasting the show as part of its fall 2011 schedule.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The sixth season ran from September 16 to December 9, 2010, comprising 12 episodes, plus the Christmas special. The seventh season ran from September 15 to December 15, 2011, comprising 13 episodes. On August 6, 2011, FX announced it had picked up the show for an additional two seasons (the eighth and ninth) running through 2013. On March 28, 2013, FX renewed the show for a tenth season, and announced that it would move to FX's new sister network, FXX.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: In April 2017, Kaitlin Olson announced that "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" would go on an extended hiatus. In an interview with "TV Guide", she said, "We ended up pushing our next season a year because we were all busy with separate projects this year. So at the end of this coming shooting season of "The Mick", I'll step right into "Sunny" after that."


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The series is available for streaming on Hulu except for the episodes "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest", "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth", "The Gang Recycles Their Trash", "The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6" and "Dee Day", due to scenes involving blackface. The same episodes are missing from Netflix in the UK, Disney+ in Canada and Australia and Star+ in Latin America.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The show uses recurring orchestral production music selections. "We had a music supervisor called Ray Espinola and we said, 'Give us everything you have in a sort of "Leave It to Beaver" with a big band-swing kind of feel,' and the majority of the songs are from what he sent over," Charlie Day explained. "When you set it against what these characters were doing—which often times can be perceived as quite despicable, or wrong—it really disarmed the audience. It just became our go-to library of songs."


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The theme song is called "Temptation Sensation" by German composer Heinz Kiessling. Kiessling's work ("On Your Bike" and "Blue Blood") can also be heard during various scene transitions throughout the show, along with other composers and pieces such as Werner Tautz ("Off Broadway"), Joe Brook ("Moonbeam Kiss"), and Karl Grell ("Honey Bunch"). Many of the tracks heard in the series are from "Cafe Romantique", an album of easy listening production music collected by Extreme Music, the production music library unit of Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Independent record label Fervor Records has also contributed music to the show. Songs from The Jack Gray Orchestra's album "Easy Listening Symph-O-Nette" ("Take A Letter Miss Jones," "Golly Gee Whiz," and "Not a Care in the World") and the John Costello III release "Giants of Jazz" ("Birdcage," "Cotton Club" and "Quintessential") are heard in several episodes.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has received critical acclaim for its humor and the performances of the cast. Emily Nussbaum of "The New Yorker" praised the show, calling it "not merely the best sitcom on television but one of the most arresting and ambitious current TV series, period." Gillian Flynn of "Entertainment Weekly" reviewed the first season negatively, commenting, "[I]t is smug enough to think it's breaking ground, but not smart enough to know it isn't." Brian Lowry of "Variety" gave the first season a positive review, saying it was "invariably clever and occasionally a laugh-out-loud riot, all while lampooning taboo topics." However, later seasons of the show have received favorable ratings on review aggregator Metacritic, receiving 70/100, 78/100 and 85/100 for seasons 4, 5 and 6 respectively. The show has become a cult hit with viewers and is often compared in style to "Seinfeld"—particularly due to the self-centered nature of its main characters. "The Philadelphia Inquirer" reviewer Jonathan Storm wrote, "It's like "Seinfeld" on crack," a quote that became widely used to describe the series, to the point that FX attached the tagline, "It's "Seinfeld" on crack."


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: In 2014, "Entertainment Weekly" listed the show at number 7 in the "26 Best Cult TV Shows Ever," with the comment that "it's a great underdog story ... If it sounds too dark for you, consider that there's an episode about making mittens for kittens, and it's adorable." In 2016, a "New York Times" study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook likes found that "Sunny" was "more popular in college towns (and most popular in Philadelphia)."


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: In 2015, "Rolling Stone" rated the top 20 greatest and funniest "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episodes, stating "for 10 seasons, the series had mined comic gold from the execrable behavior of the owners of Paddy's Pub." They claimed the two-part season 4 episode, "Mac and Charlie Die" is the sitcom's greatest episode yet. In 2019, the BBC called the show "the best US sitcom." They praised the show's unique outlook and ability to range from nihilistic humor to genuine heartfelt moments.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: According to Matt Fowler of IGN, the series "broke new ground" due to its sociopathic depiction of "The Gang". It was also ranked 63rd in IGN's list of the top 100 TV shows of all-time.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: In September 2009, the cast took their show live. The "Gang" performed the musical "The Nightman Cometh" in New York City, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Mary Elizabeth Ellis and Artemis Pebdani also appeared in the performance as The Waitress and Artemis. Actress Rhea Perlman (wife of Danny DeVito) assumed the role of Gladys.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: Creator Rob McElhenney said that Live Nation originally approached the cast about doing the show at 30 cities, but in the end the cast settled on 6. Co-developer Glenn Howerton described the show as "essentially an expanded version of the actual episode of "The Nightman Cometh," which was the final episode for season four. There are some added moments, added scenes, added songs, and extended versions of songs that already existed." Two new songs were included in the performance and a longer running time allowed for greater improvisation by the actors. The performance was also preceded by a preview screening of a season five episode.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: The Los Angeles performance, filmed at The Troubadour, was included as a bonus feature on the season four DVD box set.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: A Russian adaptation of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" premiered in Russia on the television channel TNT on May 12, 2014. This version is titled "В Москве всегда солнечно" ("V Moskve vsegda solnechno", "It's Always Sunny in Moscow") and like the original, centers around four friends, who own a bar called "Philadelphia" in Moscow.


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: A book based upon "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" was released on January 6, 2015, titled "The Gang Writes a Self-Help Book: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today".


title: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

text: On November 9, 2021, Howerton, Day, and McElhenney started "The Always Sunny Podcast", an episode-by-episode-recap of the show, with Megan Ganz as producer. Occasional guest stars include Kaitlin Olson, David Hornsby, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Michael Naughton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cormac Bluestone and Danny Devito.


title: Adam Driver

text: Adam Douglas Driver (born November 19, 1983) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award; making him one of few performers nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting.


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver made his Broadway debut in "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (2010) and subsequently appeared in "Man and Boy" (2011). He rose to prominence with a supporting role in the HBO comedy-drama series "Girls" (2012–2017), for which he received three consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations. Driver began his film career in supporting roles in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" (2012), Noah Baumbach's "Frances Ha" (2012), and the Coen Brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis" (2013). He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his lead role in the drama "Hungry Hearts" (2014).


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver gained wider recognition for playing Kylo Ren in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy (2015–2019). He starred as a poet in Jim Jarmusch's "Paterson" (2016), and had supporting roles in Martin Scorsese's religious epic "Silence" (2016) and Steven Soderbergh's heist comedy "Logan Lucky" (2017). In 2019, he returned to theater in the Broadway revival of "Burn This", for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. He garnered consecutive Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actor for Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" (2018) and Best Actor for Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" (2019). He has since starred in Ridley Scott's period films "The Last Duel" and "House of Gucci" (both 2021), and Baumbach's satire "White Noise" (2022).


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He is also the founder of Arts in the Armed Forces, a non-profit that provides free arts programming to American active-duty service members, veterans, military support staff, and their families worldwide.


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver was born on November 19, 1983, in San Diego, California, the son of Nancy Wright (née Needham), a paralegal, and Joe Douglas Driver. He has Dutch, English, German, Irish and Scottish ancestry. His father's family is from Arkansas and his mother's family is from Indiana. His stepfather, Rodney G. Wright, is a minister at a Baptist church. When Driver was seven years old, he moved with his older sister and mother to his mother's hometown Mishawaka, Indiana, where he graduated from Mishawaka High School in 2001. Driver was raised Baptist, and sang in the choir at church.


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver has described his teenage self as a "misfit"; he told "M Magazine" that he climbed radio towers, set objects on fire, and co-founded a fight club with friends, inspired by the 1999 film "Fight Club". After high school, he worked as a door-to-door salesman selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and as a telemarketer for a basement waterproofing company and Ben Franklin Construction. He applied to the Juilliard School for drama but was not accepted.


title: Adam Driver

text: Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Driver enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was assigned to Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines as an 81mm mortar man. He served for two years and eight months before fracturing his sternum while mountain biking. He was medically discharged with the rank of Lance Corporal.


title: Adam Driver

text: Subsequently, Driver attended the University of Indianapolis for a year before auditioning again for Juilliard, this time succeeding. He got the news he was accepted while at work at the Target Distribution Center in Indianapolis. Driver has said that his classmates saw him as an intimidating and volatile figure, and he struggled to fit into a lifestyle so different from the Marines. He was a member of the Drama Division's "Group 38" from 2005 to 2009, where he met his future wife, Joanne Tucker. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009.


title: Adam Driver

text: After graduating from Juilliard, Driver moved to New York City, appearing in both Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Like many aspiring actors, he occasionally worked as a busboy and waiter. Driver appeared in several television shows and short films. His first television role was in 2009 in the final episode of "The Unusuals", as a repentant witness and reluctant accomplice to an unsolved assault. He made his film debut in Clint Eastwood's biographical drama film "J. Edgar".


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2012, Driver was cast in the HBO comedy-drama series "Girls", as the emotionally unstable Adam Sackler, the boyfriend of Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham). He received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role. The same year, Driver played supporting roles in two critically acclaimed films, as telegraph and cipher officer Samuel Beckwith in Steven Spielberg's historical drama "Lincoln", and Lev Shapiro in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama "Frances Ha". He starred in the drama "Not Waving But Drowning" and the romantic-comedy "Gayby". He garnered major off-Broadway recognition for playing Cliff, a working-class Welsh houseguest in "Look Back in Anger," winning the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2013, Driver appeared in the drama "Bluebird" and the romantic-comedy "What If". He played a musician in the Coen Brothers' black comedy "Inside Llewyn Davis", and photographer Rick Smolan in the drama "Tracks". In 2014, he played Jude, a despairing father, in the drama "Hungry Hearts"; Jamie, an aspiring filmmaker, in Noah Baumbach's comedy "While We're Young"; and Phillip, the black sheep of a dysfunctional Jewish family, in the comedy-drama "This Is Where I Leave You". For his performance in "Hungry Hearts", Driver won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. For "Vogue"s September 2013 issue, Driver appeared in an editorial alongside Canadian model Daria Werbowy set in Ireland, photographed by Annie Leibovitz.


title: Adam Driver

text: In early 2014, Driver was cast as villain Kylo Ren in "" (2015). It was released on December 18, 2015, to commercial and critical success. He reprised the role in "" (2017) and "" (2019). His performance was positively received, with his character lauded as the best in the series: David Edelstein of "Vulture" wrote, "the core of "The Last Jedi" — of this whole trilogy, it seems — is Driver's Kylo Ren, who ranks with cinema's most fascinating human monsters." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" highlighted Driver's performance in his review of "The Force Awakens", calling him "gorgeously cruel, spiteful and capricious... very suited to Kylo Ren's fastidious and amused contempt for his enemies' weakness and compassion."


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2016, Driver played a supporting role in Jeff Nichols' sci-fi thriller "Midnight Special", which was released on March 18, 2016. He also co-starred in Martin Scorsese's historical drama "Silence" (2016) as Father Francisco Garupe, a 17th-century Portuguese Jesuit priest, alongside Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson. While filming, Driver lost almost 50 pounds. In Jim Jarmusch's drama film "Paterson", Driver played the eponymous bus driver and poetry writer. The film premiered at the 69th Cannes Film Festival and was released on December 28, 2016. Driver's performance was acclaimed and he received multiple nominations for Best Actor from critics' associations, winning several, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote "Driver's indelibly moving portrayal is so lived-in and lyrical you hardly recognize it as acting." "Paterson" was included in many critics' top ten lists of best films of 2016.


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2017, Driver made a cameo in Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories" playing Randy and making his third appearance in one of their films. It premiered at the 70th Cannes Film Festival and was released on October 13, 2017, on Netflix. He played Clyde, a one-armed Iraq War veteran, in Steven Soderbergh's "Logan Lucky", which was released on August 18, 2017. In 2018, Driver portrayed a Jewish police detective, Phillip "Flip" Zimmerman, who helps infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in Spike Lee's comedy-drama "BlacKkKlansman". The film premiered at 71st Cannes Film Festival and was theatrically released on August 10. He received critical acclaim for his performance in the film and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Driver played Toby Grummett in Terry Gilliam's adventure-comedy film "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote", which also premiered at Cannes.


title: Adam Driver

text: In early 2019, Driver played Daniel J. Jones in Scott Z. Burns' political drama "The Report", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. He returned to Broadway to play Pale against Keri Russell in a Michael Mayer-directed production of Lanford Wilson's "Burn This", receiving acclaim for his explosive performance and a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. He was part of the ensemble cast of Jim Jarmusch's zombie comedy film "The Dead Don't Die", which premiered at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival and was released on June 14, 2019. That same year, Driver starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story", which premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. Reviewing the film in "The Hollywood Reporter", critic Jon Frosch noted that Driver "delivers a brilliantly inhabited and shaded portrait" of a man undergoing a divorce. For his performance, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2020, Driver became the subject of a running gag on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver", in which Oliver expressed several strange masochistic fantasies about Driver, referencing his muscular build and masculine appearance. Driver eventually appeared on the final episode of the season and "demanded an apology". In 2021, he went viral for his shirtless appearance in the advertising campaign for Burberry's masculine fragrance Hero. Driver again returned for the advertising campaign for the eau de parfum concentration of Hero in 2022.


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2021, Driver starred in Leos Carax's long-awaited musical drama film "Annette", which premiered at the 74th Cannes Film Festival. He also played a leading role in Ridley Scott's historical drama "The Last Duel", along with the biopic crime film "House of Gucci", which covers the assassination of Maurizio Gucci, and was also directed by Scott. Equally praised by critics and directors, Driver's acting has a unique signature style that displays skittish, unpredictable physicality with full-bodied enthusiasm like Denis Lavant and Buster Keaton.


title: Adam Driver

text: In 2022, Driver starred in the apocalyptic black comedy film "White Noise", which marks his fifth collaboration with Noah Baumbach.


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver is set to star in "65", a sci-fi thriller directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, and Jeff Nichols' historical drama, "Yankee Commandante". In February 2022, it was announced that Driver will portray racing mogul Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann's "Ferrari", alongside Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley. The film is set to start filming in May. In May 2022, he was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's film "Megalopolis".


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver married his longtime partner Joanne Tucker in June 2013. Tucker is the granddaughter of Bermudian politician Henry Tucker. The couple have a son, whose birth they kept private from the press for two years. They live in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City with their son and dog. Driver is the founder of Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF), a non-profit that performs theatre for all branches of the military in the United States and abroad.


title: Adam Driver

text: Driver has said on multiple occasions that he does not like to watch or listen to his own performances. During a radio interview with NPR's "Fresh Air", he chose not to continue with the interview after the host played a clip from "Marriage Story". The executive producer of the radio show later claimed that Driver was warned to take off his headphones before the clip played, and that the show did something similar with Driver during a 2015 interview. During the same interview, Driver stated he disliked watching or listening to his acting work. He says his usual technique is to leave the theatre and, "then I go back, and when the lights come up, I stand up I pretend that I was there the whole time."