JAIPUR: A queen previous her top happy someplace past the lantana. A tender suitor adopted. The scrub and dirt of Ranthambore’s Zone 6 bore witness Saturday night to a spectacle even veteran trackers blinked at – the nationwide park’s oldest dwelling tigress T-39, aka Noor, mating at an age when maximum large cats have lengthy hung up their claws.Estimated to be 17 to 18 years previous, Noor already holds the Ranthambore report for breeding on the oldest age ever observed within the wild. In 2022, she produced a clutter – her 9th – defying the norm that tigresses prevent breeding via 12 or 13. In Would possibly 2023, conservation biologist Dharmendra Khandal noticed her clutter susceptible and emaciated, her udder dried up.But right here she used to be – sparkling coat, canine intact – mating with T-101, with reviews she had additionally paired with every other male days previous. “Mating at this age has now not been noticed within the wild,” former honorary flora and fauna warden Balendu Singh mentioned. “She is wholesome. At this time, she is the oldest dwelling tigress within the wild with out intervention.”Noor’s longevity and reproductive hearth level to bold genetics. She is the daughter of Outdated Sultanpur feminine T-13 – referred to as Binda. “Her mom reached 18.5 years with out toughen till she disappeared in Oct 2023,” Khandal mentioned. “However the most breeding age I have in my opinion noticed within the wild is that of Noor in Ranthambore.”The mating would possibly by no means undergo fruit. “Now not a cat in hell’s probability,” mentioned a veterinary officer, including there is no documented case of a tigress birthing at or after 17 even in captivity. However within the wild, as Khandal put it, there may be all the time “a unprecedented push in opposition to nature’s limits”.Infrequently it is male power, occasionally it is her selection. “The will of an older feminine can’t be denied,” Khandal mentioned. Noor had proven that the wild has its personal clock – and he or she nonetheless assists in keeping the time.