Rare Amur Tiger Dad and his Family Caught in a Camera Trap (VIDEO)

A rare family of Amur tigers has been caught on camera. Now, the Wildlife Conservation Society's Russian Program and the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve and Udegeiskaya Legenda National Park has released a new slideshow of the tiger family showing an adult male with his offspring in tow.

"Although WCS's George Schaller documented sporadic familial groups of Bengal tigers as early as the 1960s, this is the first time such behavior has been photographed for Amur tigers in the wild," said Dale Miquelle, one of the researchers, in a news release. "These photos provide a small vignette of social interactions of Amur tigers, and provide an evocative snapshot of life in the wild for these magnificent animals."

The photos are actually the result of a 2014-2015 project establishing a network of camera traps across both Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve and Udegeiskaya Legenda National Park. The goal of the project was to gain a better understanding about Amur tigers in the region. In the end, the researchers captured a remarkable series of 21 photographs that showed the tigers passing the same camera trap.

"We have collected hundreds of photos of tigers over the years, and this is the first time we have recorded a family together," said Svetlana Soutyrina, a former WCS Russia employee. "These images confirm that male Amur tigers do participate in family life, at least occasionally, and we were lucky enough to capture one such moment."

The exact population size of Amur tigers is difficult to estimate, which is why camera traps are widely used in order to help with these estimates. In 2005, though, it was estimated that there were about 430 to 500 tigers remaining in the wild.

Want to see the slideshow yourself? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).