You must be thinking, why we are talking about the death of an tigress with such deep emotion. Well, what if we tell you that this tigress was no less than a celebrity. Machhli, best known as the striped cat had her own Facebook page and Wikipedia page as well. She was even bestowed with several honours given by different organisations across the world. Find that interesting? Now, check out what made her such an popular figure and of course the Queen of Ranthambore National Park.
Well, she was born in 1997 and at her birth she had a fish shaped mark on her face and hence was named, 'Machhli'.
Machhli was quite popular for her famous fight with a 120-foot-long crocodile. She actually managed to kill the crocodile and even lost a few of her teeth in the fight.
Machhli had eleven offsprings, with seven female and four males. The tigress did more than her share in increasing Ranthambore's big cat population. Her litter helped repopulate not just Ranthambore but Sariska as well.
This picture was captured by an Indian Wildlife photographer, Aditya Singh at Ranthambhore Tiger reserve in the Indian desert state of Rajasthan. The bout shows a tiger (left) and Machhali (right) when they were in a duel. The fight lasted for less than a minute, but proved once in a lifetime experience for the snapper.
The tigress was known to be even tempered and quite tolerant. She would never be shy of showing herself to the people. This was one of the major reasons for the increased sightings at Ranthambore that drew a large number of crowds.
With her photogenic face and people friendly approach, she was a delight to shutterbugs and earned Rs. 6 Crore every month and that's a huge amount for Ranthambore National Park. In the last ten years, the tigress has earned the government a stupendous amount with an average of 67 Crore each year.
R.I.P Machhli, your presence in the world made it a better place.
Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]
