It's selfie time! Picture: Land of the Leopards

The rare Siberian tigers were caught on camera in the Land of the Leopard National Park in the Rusisan Far East.

The mother seemed tired, perhaps after a night's hunting, but the cubs wanted to play, as if posing for the camera trap set up by rangers to monitor the endangered species of Amur tigers and leopards. Their game became quite rough, biting each other, and rolling around, until they disturbed the mother who was not best pleased.

She roared and raised her paw at them, but also seemed to join in the game.

Her authority prevailed and the family appeared ready to sleep.

But at this point one of the cubs approached the camera trap and knocked it - causing the memory card to fall out, and ending their selfie show.



According to the latest data collected in 2016, there are 22 adult Siberian tigers and 7 cubs the Land of the Leopard park. Pictures: Land of the Leopards

The mother has been spotted before, and is known as T7F to scientists tracking the Siberian tiger population.

Ekaterina Blidchenko, research fellow of Land of Leopard and veterinarian at PRNCO 'Tiger Center', said: 'These shots are unique because they do not just show how the animals walk on a path, but display a whole episode of life of a healthy tiger family.

'The tiger cubs are just four to five months old.

'They cannot fully control their force and this skill is very important in such games.

'Such fighting is necessary not only to train muscles and improve hunting skills.

'First of all this is social experience and the mother-tigress is their first teacher.

'We see the comfortable behaviour of healthy animals, which have enough food in the national park.

'And the tigress even has time to play with her cubs.'



Strike a pose! Pictures: Land of the Leopards

Dina Matyukhina, senior fellow researcher of Land of Leopard, said this tigress is a hero mother.

'In 2014 camera traps caught her with three cubs, and all of them grew up.

'It's interesting that two of them left Russia and crossed into China while the third one settled close to the border, so he is seen by camera traps of both Russia and China.

According to the latest data collected in 2016, there are 22 adult Siberian tigers and 7 cubs the Land of the Leopard park.

Poachers hunted the species to virtual extinction but numbers are now recovering.

Yet this family show three of around 600 tigers surviving in the Russian Far East.

Happy family. Pictures: Land the Leopard