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The Caspian tiger was a tiger from a specific population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies that was native to eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus around the Caspian Sea, Central Asia to northern Afghanistan, and Xinjiang in western China. It inhabited sparse forests and riverine corridors in this region until the 1970s. This population was assessed as extinct in 2003.
Felis virgata was a scientific name used since its 1815 naming by Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger for tigers of this zone. It was seen as a distinct subspecies, most often as Panthera tigris virgata. However, results of phylogeographic analysis evinces that the Caspian and Siberian tiger populations shared a common continuous geographic distribution until the early 19th century.
Some Caspian tigers were intermediate in size between Siberian and Bengal tigers.
It was also called the Balkhash tiger, Hyrcanian tiger, Turanian tiger, and the Mazandaran tiger (Persian: ببرِ مازندران), by local communities.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_tiger
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