From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A liger: The liger is a cross (a hybrid) between a male lion and a female tiger. It is therefore a member of genus Panthera. As is the case with all hybrid species, there is no scientific name assigned to this animal. A liger looks like a giant lion with diffused stripes. Ligers, unlike lions, like swimming.
Ligers grow much larger than tigers or lions. It is believed this is because female lions transmit a growth-inhibiting gene to their descendants to balance the growth-promoting gene transmitted by male lions. (This gene is due to competitive mating strategies in lions.) A male lion needs to be large to successfully defend the pride from other roaming male lions and pass on his genes; also, in prides with multiple male adult lions, a male's cubs need to be bigger than the competing males for the best chance of survival. Thus, his genes favor larger offspring.
Ligers may exhibit emotional or behavioural conflicts due to their mixed ancestry.
They inherit different or mixed vocabularies (tigers "chuff", lions roar). G Peters included several hybrids (liger, tigon, leopon, liguar) in his "Comparative Investigation of Vocalisation in Several Felids" published in German in Spixiana-Supplement, 1978; (1): 1-206.
They may inherit conflicting behavioural traits from the parent species. Ligers may exhibit conflicts between the social habits of the lion and the solitary habits of the tiger. Their lion heritage wants them to form social groups, but their tiger heritage urges them to be intolerant of company. Opponents of deliberate hybridization say this causes confusion and depression for the animals, especially after sexual maturity. How much of their behaviour is due to conflicting instincts and how much is due to abnormal hormones or the stress of captive conditions is not fully known.
TigonTigon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tigon is the artificially bred hybrid of a male tiger and a female lion. Like all hybrid species, there is no scientific name assigned to this animal. The tigon is not as common as the converse hybrid, the liger, however in the late 1800s and early 1900s, tigons were more common than ligers. Tigons do not occur naturally in the wild, as the lion and tiger have very different behaviours and habitats.
Tigons can exhibit characteristics of both parents: they can have both spots from the mother (lions carry genes for spots - lion cubs are spotted) and stripes from the father. Any mane that a male tigon may have will appear shorter and less noticeable than a lion's mane and is closer in type to the ruff of a male tiger. Tigons usually grow smaller than lions or tigers, due to the fact that they inherit growth-inhibitory genes from both parents; they often weigh around 150 kilograms (350 lb). They appear "housecat-like". However, some have reached the size of the smaller parent.
The comparative rarity of tigons is attributed to male tigers finding the courtship behaviour of a lioness too subtle and thus may miss behavioural cues that signal her willingness to mate. However lionesses actively solicit mating so their current rarity is most likely due to them being less impressive in size than ligers. A century ago, tigons were evidently more common than ligers. Gerald Iles, in "At Home In The Zoo" (1961) was able to obtain 3 tigons for Manchester's Belle Vue Zoo, but wrote that he had never seen a liger. A number of tigons are currently being bred in China.