Bali Tiger (Panthera tigris balica) : 1937
Bali tiger, Panthera tigris balica
As the name would imply, this subspecies of tiger was native to the Indonesian island of Bali. It was the smallest of the tiger subspecies, and probably closely related to the also-extinct Javan tiger and the critically endangered Sumatran tiger.
Hunted by Indonesians for centuries, its relationship with human beings was already precarious when Europeans arrived. Sport hunting of the Bali tiger became popular on the island, with the animal perceived as both a threat and a trophy. It was never captured alive on film, nor kept in any zoo (a quick Google search will bring up a lot of dead tiger photos); all we have today are the remains of a few trophies of the hunt, and photos like this one, depicting the hunting party of Baron Oskar Vojnich in November of 1911:
The last known Bali tiger was a female, shot on 27 September, 1937, in west Bali. Populations or individuals may have survived as late as the 1950s, but the loss of habitat on the small island combined with overhunting extirpated the subspecies.
