PETALING JAYA: A Malayan tiger was killed crossing the East Coast Expressway Phase 2 (LPT2) at about midnight.

The Malaysian Highway Authority (MHA) confirmed that a car bound for Kuala Terengganu hit the tiger near the 321km highway mark.

"It happened last night, roughly around midnight, at the section near Paka to Kerteh," MHA director-general Datuk Ismail Md Salleh told The Star on Saturday.

He said the place where the tiger died cut through a forest reserve there.

Malaysia is home to the Malayan Tiger, a critically endangered species with only about 250 to 340 left in the wild.

He added that fences had been put up along the highway to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Ismail said the MHA, which was currently in charge of the highway, was going to check and see if there were any damaged fences there.

Posts on social media this morning showed a dead tiger lying by the side of a road.

Though the person who hit the tiger was not identified, a picture on social media suggests that they might have been driving an MPV at the time.

Ismail added that the area was also prone to cattle crossing the road, and he advised motorists not to drive very fast there.

He added that the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) remove the tiger's body at about 3am.