A camera trap in Land of the Leopard National Park captured images of three Amur tiger cubs and their mother. The photos show how the family carefully inspects a tree on which various animals leave their scent and scratch marks to communicate with each other.

“In their noses, all cats have a special organ used for smelling special scents, including marks. Tigers too have the so-called flehmen response, when an animal curls back its upper lip and makes a grimace to facilitate the transfer of scents to its vomeronasal organ when it senses a substance of particular interest. From birth, cats instinctively learn to recognise the smells of other animals. The cubs’ smelling of the tree in itself is not very important for research, but the information about reproducing tigresses and their cubs is crucial,” said Dina Matyukhina, a senior research fellow at Land of the Leopard.

Experts say that the tigress is T 19F. She is seven years old and gets regularly captured by trail cameras. This is her second litter.