BEIJING, Dec 3, 2007 (AFP) - Recent photos billed as the first images taken of a wild South China tiger in decades have been debunked as frauds by a group of experts, state press said Monday.

The photos were released in October by the Shaanxi province forestry bureau in northern China, which trumpeted them as proof that the extremely rare cat was not extinct in the wild as previously thought.

But digital specialists, biologists, and animal experts convened by the China Photography Association to investigate the pictures have concluded they were faked or digitally enhanced, the Beijing Times said.

"From close inspection of all 40 digital pictures of the wild South China tiger, the tigers in pictures six and 30 are exactly the same," the report quoted an expert at the Huaxia Centre for Material Evidence as saying.

Animal experts also said the tiger's eyes did not reflect light the way a cat's eyes normally do, it said.

An expert from the Guangdong Photography Institute said some of the images appeared to be taken from wildlife calendars.

The photos were allegedly taken on October 3 by a Shaanxi farmer.

The last wild South China tiger sighting was recorded in 1964.

Experts have said no more than 20 to 30 of the tigers were believed to remain in the wild, but none have been spotted in decades, with many fearing that a small number of captive-born tigers are all that remain.

The South China tiger, whose traditional range is southern and central China, is one of six remaining tiger subspecies.

Three other subspecies, the Bali, Java, and Caspian tigers, have all become extinct since the 1940s, according to the US-based Save The Tiger Fund.