the Trans-Caucasus up to the Don River basin; the Armenian and Zangezur Mountains of northwestern Persia. In Iran, historical records are known only from along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and adjacent Alborz Mountains. Central Asia, such as in southwestern Turkmenia along the Atrek River and its tributaries, and the Sumbar and Chandyr Rivers; in the western and southwestern parts of Kopet-Dag; in the environs of Ashkabad in the northern foothills; in Afghanistan along the upper reaches of Hari-Rud at Herat, and along the jungles in the lower reaches of the river; around Tedzhen and Murgap and along the Kushka and Kashan rivers; in the Amu Darya basin as far the Aral Sea and along the entire coast of the Aral Sea; along the Syr-Darya to the Fergana Valley as far as Tashkent and the western spur of Talas Alatau; along the Chu and Ili Rivers; all along the southern shore of Lake Balkhash and northwards into the southern Altai Mountains, and to southeastern Transbaikal or Western Siberia in the east. In China, it occurred in the Tarim, Manasi River and Lop Nur basins. Its former distribution can be approximated by examining the distribution of ungulates in the region. Wild boar was the numerically dominant ungulate in forested habitats, along watercourses, in reed beds and in thickets of the Caspian and Aral Seas. Where watercourses penetrated deep into desert areas, suitable wild pig and tiger habitat was often linear, only a few kilometers wide at most. Red and roe deer occurred in forests around the Black Sea to the western side and around the southern side of the Caspian Sea in a narrow belt of forest cover. Roe deer occurred in forested areas south of Lake Balkash. Bactrian deer lived in the narrow belt of forest habitat on the southern border of the Aral Sea, and southward along the Syr-Darya and Amu Darya rivers. Throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene, the Caspian tiger population was likely connected to the Bengal tiger population through corridors below elevations of in the Hindu Kush, before gene flow was interrupted by humans. Local extinction The demise of the Caspian tiger began with the Russian colonisation of Turkestan during the late 19th century. Its extirpation was caused by several factors: Tigers were killed by large parties of sportsmen and military personnel who also hunted tiger prey species such as wild pigs. The wild