Researchers have received a unique video featuring Grom, the son of Boris and Svetlaya, recorded by a camera trap at the Zhuravliny Nature Sanctuary.

While analysing photos and videos obtained during the recent expedition to the Jewish Autonomous Region, experts found footage of a rare moment, the roar of a tiger.

According to Sergei Aramilev, director general of the Amur Tiger Centre, experts were extremely lucky to receive such footage. He said that unlike smaller felines, the tiger is known as a silent animal. Even experts who spent years in the taiga did not hear the master of the taiga’s roar often. But all of them say that once you hear it, you will remember it forever, for the roar of a tiger is a savage, spine-tingling sound that has nothing in common with that of a domestic cat. To purr, small felines use a mechanism that consists of thin interconnected bones under their tongues. When a cat starts to purr, its vocal folds tighten and reverberate in these bones when the cat breathes in and out. Tigers have their sublingual bones protected by cartilage, so they cannot vibrate to make the purring sound. However, tigers can produce a wide range of sounds. For instance, they can imitate the roar of a Manchurian wapiti to attract their prey, other male wapitis. Sometimes they do it so professionally that even unexperienced hunters confuse the roar of a tiger with that of a deer,” Sergei Aramilev said.

Grom received his name during an online vote organised by the Amur Tiger Centre and the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station. A single-elimination method was used to select the best 32 names out of the 230 that were submitted. Voters then chose a name for the tiger from the shortlist.

Grom currently lives in the Zhuravliny Nature Sanctuary where he shares the land with his father, Boris, and is regularly spotted by camera traps.

According to the latest data, the tiger may soon “get married.” The tigress Filippa, who was released into the wild in the spring of 2017, may become his mate. The camera traps show that both tigers visit the same places and leave scent marks, maybe for each other.