Tigon: A hybrid of Tiger & Lioness

A tigon is the result of cross breeding a male tiger with a female lion. This does not occur in the wild because of the territorial differences of the two cats but breeding between the two cats does occur. When mixed in captivity breeding will naturally happen and the resulting offspring will be a tigon.

Tigons can exhibit characteristics of both parents: they can have both spots from the mother 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. The basic colour of lion/tiger hybrids is pale ochre to rust yellow-brown, more intensive than in the lion, but paler than in the tiger and with tiger striping.

A tigon is often smaller than either a lion or tiger though some have attained or exceeded the size of the smaller parent. They may be less robust than either parent. There is less interest in them because they are less spectacular than ligers, they often weigh around 150 kilograms. The actual size and appearance depends on which subspecies are bred together and how the genes interact.

RECORDS OF TIGONS

Here is a record of tigons at different locations recently.

1. There were 2 known living tigons in 1976; both in Calcutta zoo: a 5 year old female named Rudrani and her 3 year old sister Ranjini. The zoo's first tigon was Rudhrani, born in 1971, was mated to an Asiatic lion and produced 7 li-tigons in her lifetime. Some of these reached impressive sizes - a li-tigon named Cubanacan (died April 12th, 1991) was believed to weigh at least 363 kg, stood 52 inches/1.32m at the shoulder and 11.5ft/3.5 m total length (1994: GBWR "largest litigin").

2. Tigons were also once kept at a French safari park on the estate of an (unidentified) aristocrat. When female tigon Noelle was born at Shambala in 1978.

3. In December 2000, Australia's National Zoo in Canberra acquired a brother and sister pair of tigons. Aster (male) and Tangier (female) had been bred accidentally in 1987 at a circus to a Bengal tiger and a lioness. They were hand-raised and spent their first several years at a private facility.

4. In August 2001, Shanghai Safari Park had 4 tigon cubs from an accidental pairing of African lioness "Huanhuan" and Siberian tiger "Huihui". Unfortunately, none survived.

REPRODUCTIVITY

While male tigons are sterile, female tigons are fertile, and they can reproduce. Because only female ligers and tigons are fertile, a liger cannot reproduce with a tigon. If a tigon were to reproduce with a lion, it would be called a Li-tigon, and if it were to reproduce with a tiger, ir would be a ti-tigon. Same way if a liger were to reproduce with a tiger, it would be called a ti-liger, and if it were to reproduce with a lion, it would be called a li-liger.

Liger: A hybrid of Lion & Tigress

The liger is a cat born from the breeding of a male lion and a female tiger. This combination produces an offspring with more lionistic features than if the reverse pairing had occurred. That would produce a more Tigeristic creature known as a Tigon. Both are members of genus Panthera. There is no scientific name assigned to this animal because of it’s human assisted ancestry.

A liger resembles a giant lion with muted stripes but like their tiger ancestors, ligers like swimming. This goes against the nature of a lion but is what makes creature special. It gets the best of both parents. They are the largest cats in the world. A similar hybrid, the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion lion is called a tigon.

Ligers have a tiger-like striping pattern on a lion-like tawny background. In addition they may inherit rosettes from the lion parent. These markings may be black, dark brown or sandy. The background color may be correspondingly tawny, sandy or golden. In common with tigers, their underparts are pale. The actual pattern and color depends on which subspecies the parents were and on the way in which the genes interact in the offspring.


HISTORY OF LIGERS AT DIFFERENT LOCATIONS
1. The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species now has a Liger named Hercules. The breeding is said to be a complete accident. Hercules was in the Book of World Records as the largest cat. Hercules seems completely healthy and is expected to live a long life. The largest non-obese Liger, known as Hercules, is said to weigh over 544kg, over twice the size of a male lion.

2. At Hainan Tropical Wildlife Park and Botanical Garden in suburb of Haikou city, capital of China’s south most province of Hainan, a lion father and tiger mother have quadruplet liger cubs. The four cubs were born on March 23, 2006.

3. A liger that was born last summer has now gone on public display in an open-air enclosure at a Siberian zoo, RIA. The female called Zita is one of two cubs born from a cross between a female Bengalese tiger and an African lion at Novosibirsk Zoo last summer. Zita is now an adolescent carnivore weighting 50 kilos, who feeds on meat, milk, eggs and other food that grown-up big cats eat.


POSSIBLE CAUSES OF ITS HUGE SIZE
Imprinted genes may be a factor contributing to liger size. These are genes that may or may not be expressed depending on the parent they are inherited from, and that occasionally play a role in issues of hybrid growth. For example, in some mice species crosses, genes that are expressed only when maternally-inherited cause the young to grow larger than is typical for either parent species. This growth is not seen in the paternal species, as such genes are normally "counteracted" by genes inherited from the female of the appropriate species.

Another possible hypothesis is that the growth dysplasia results from the interaction between lion genes and tiger womb environment. The tiger produces a hormone that sets the fetal liger on a pattern of growth that does not end throughout its life. The hormonal hypothesis is that the cause of the male liger's growth is its sterility — essentially, the male liger remains in the pre-pubertal growth phase. This is not upheld by behavioural evidence - despite being sterile, many male ligers become sexually mature and mate with females. Male ligers also have the same levels of testosterone ng/dl on average as an adult male lion. In addition, female ligers also attain great size, weighing approximately 700 lb and reaching 10 feet long on average, but are often fertile.


REPRODUCTIVITY
While male ligers are sterile, female ligers are fertile, and they can reproduce. Because only female ligers and tigons are fertile, a liger cannot reproduce with a tigon. If a liger were to reproduce with a tiger, it would be called a ti-liger, and if it were to reproduce with a lion, it would be called a li-liger. Same way if a tigon were to reproduce with a lion, it would be called a Li-tigon, and if it were to reprodude with a tiger, ir would be a ti-tigon.