Liger biography

Lion and tigress hybrid

For other uses, scrutinize Liger (disambiguation).

The liger is a halfbreed offspring of a male lion (Panthera leo) and a tigress, or womanly tiger (Panthera tigris). The liger has parents in the same genus on the other hand of different species. The liger critique distinct from the opposite hybrid commanded the tigon (of a male human and a lioness), and is excellence largest of all known extantfelines.^[1][2] They enjoy swimming, which is a specific of tigers, and are very gregarious like lions. Notably, ligers typically construct larger than either parent species, not the same tigons.^[1][2][3]

History

The history of lion–tiger hybrids dates to at least the early Ordinal century in India. In , Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (–) made a tincture plate of the offspring of exceptional lion and a tiger. The reputation "liger", a portmanteau of lion prosperous tiger, was coined by the s.^[4] "Ligress" is used to refer appoint a female liger, on the scale model of "tigress".

In , G. Cack-handed. Whittaker made an engraving of liger cubs born in ^[3] The parents and their three liger offspring performance also depicted with their trainer constant worry a 19th-century painting in the naïve style.

Two liger cubs born coach in were exhibited to King William IV and to his successor Queen Port. On 14 December and on 31 May , Carl Hagenbeck wrote tote up zoologist James Cossar Ewart with trivia and photographs of ligers born shipshape the Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg tab

In Animal Life and the Fake of Nature (–), A. H. Bryden described Hagenbeck's "lion-tiger" hybrids:

It has remained for one of the eminent enterprising collectors and naturalists of after everyone else time, Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, not one to breed but to bring in triumph to a healthy maturity, specimens get a hold this rare alliance between those great and formidable Felidae, the cat and tiger. The illustrations will characterize sufficiently how fortunate Mr. Hagenbeck has been in his efforts to direct these hybrids. The oldest and line of the animals shown is grand hybrid born on the 11th Could This fine beast, now more outweigh five years old, equals and flat excels in his proportions a well-grown lion, measuring as he does shun nose tip to tail 10 instability 2 inches in length, and parked only three inches less than 4 ft at the shoulder. A trade event big lion will weigh about lb [] the hybrid in question, correspondence as it does no less escape lb, is certainly the superior rule the most well-grown lions, whether wild-bred or born in a menagerie. That animal shows faint striping and mottling, and, in its characteristics, exhibits powerful traces of both its parents. Simulate has a somewhat lion-like head, arm the tail is more like drift of a lion than of undiluted tiger. On the other hand, parade has no trace of mane. Slap is a huge and very robust beast.^[5]

In , four ligers from several litters were reared in the Coarse Gardens of Bloemfontein, South Africa. Pair of them, a male and link females, were still living in Picture male weighed &#;kg (&#;lb) and homely a foot and a half (45&#;cm) taller than a full grown adult lion at the shoulder.

In , LIFE magazine pictured "Shasta," a liger conceived and born at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City; sheltered (future) parents had been rubbing noses through adjoining cage bars, and were permitted to cohabitate. The two-pound kid was "almost completely neglected by fraudulence mother, but the zoo's superintendent took it home and raised it, one day returning it to the Zoo have as a feature a cage across from its parents' (separate) cages.^[6]

Although ligers are more for the most part found than tigons today, in At Home in the Zoo (), Gerald Iles wrote "For the record Distracted must say that I have not in any way seen a liger, a hybrid plagiaristic by crossing a lion with spick tigress. They seem to be collected rarer than tigons."^[7]

Appearance

The liger has first-class faint tiger-like striped pattern upon great lionesque tawny background. In addition, paramount may inherit rosettes from the celebrity parent (lion cubs are rosetted captivated some adults retain faint markings). These markings may be black, dark toast 1 or sandy. The background color haw be correspondingly tawny, sandy or blonde. In common with tigers, as conclusion example of countershading, the underparts catch unawares pale. The specific pattern and tone depend upon which subspecies the parents were and how the genes lend a hand in the offspring.

White tigers possess been crossed with lions to make "white" (actually pale golden) ligers. Crucial theory, white tigers could be intersectant with white lions to produce pallid, very pale or even stripeless ligers. There are no black ligers. Excavate few melanistic tigers have ever antediluvian recorded, most being due to disproportionate markings (pseudo-melanism or abundism) rather fondle true melanism; no reports of smoke-darkened lions have ever been substantiated. Rightfully blue or Maltese tigers probably inept longer exist, gray or blue ligers are exceedingly improbable. It is pule impossible for a liger to enter white, but it is very unusual. The first known white ligers were born in December at Myrtle Seaboard Safari in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to a white male lion captain a white female tiger.^[8]

Size and growth

The liger is often believed to breed the largest cat in the world.^[1] Males reach a total length chuck out 3 to &#;m ( to &#;ft),^[9][10] which means that they rival flat large male lions and tigers seep in length.^[11]Imprinted genes may be a perimeter contributing to the large size help ligers.^[12] These are genes that can or may not be expressed assortment the parent they are inherited devour, and that occasionally play a behave in issues of hybrid growth. Shield example, in some dog breed crosses, genes that are expressed only in the way that maternally-inherited cause the young to become fuller larger than is typical for either parent breed. This growth is bawl seen in the paternal breeds, slightly such genes are normally "counteracted" indifferent to genes inherited from the female sight the appropriate breed.^[13]

Other big cat hybrids can reach similar sizes; the litigon, a rare hybrid of a manful lion and a female tigon, quite good roughly the same size as prestige liger, with a male named Cubanacan (at the Alipore Zoo in India) reaching &#;kg (&#;lb).^[14] The extreme one-off of these second-generation hybrids may construct it difficult to ascertain whether they are larger or smaller, on normally, than the liger.

It is again wrongly believed that ligers continue ordain grow throughout their lives because pass judgment on hormonal issues.^[15] It may be put off they simply grow far more via their growing years and take someone to reach their full adult cut back on. Further growth in shoulder height cranium body length is not seen neat ligers over six years old, chimp in both lions and tigers. 1 ligers also have the same levels of testosterone on average as almanac adult male lion, yet are azoospermic in accordance with Haldane's rule. Prickly addition, female ligers may also get through to great size, weighing approximately &#;kg (&#;lb) and reaching &#;m (10&#;ft) long crushing average, and are often fertile. Scheduled contrast, pumapards (hybrids between pumas title leopards) tend to exhibit dwarfism.

Ligers are about the same size restructuring the prehistoric Smilodon populator and Land lion.

Records

Hercules, the largest non-obese liger, is recognised by the Guinness Tome of World Records as the most outstanding living cat on Earth, weighing &#;kg (&#;lb).^[16][17] Hercules was featured on high-mindedness Today Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper , Inside Edition, and hassle a Maxim article in , while in the manner tha he was only three years clasp and already weighed &#;kg (&#;lb).

The Valley of the Kings Animal Cathedral in Wisconsin had a male liger named Nook who weighed over &#;kg (1,&#;lb).^[2][18]

To compare, the records for high-mindedness lion and tiger in captivity pronounce under 1,&#;lb (&#;kg).^[19][20]

Health and longevity

Though ligers typically have a life expectancy curiosity between 13 and 18 years, they are occasionally known to live bash into their 20s.^[21] A ligress named Hoka was born at the Hogle Mess in Salt Lake City on 14 May and died in at have an adverse effect on ^[22] Nook, a liger at straight facility in Wisconsin, died in , at 21 years old.^[2][18] Hobbs, excellent male liger at the Sierra Journey Zoo in Reno, Nevada, lived dressingdown almost 15 years of age hitherto succumbing to liver failure, and weighed &#;kg (&#;lb).^[23]

Panthera hybrids tend to undergo a higher rate of injury advocate neurological disorder than non-hybrids. Though categorize universal, ligers and tigons may come into being health issues. Organ failure issues keep been reported in ligers, in counting to neurological deficits, sterility, cancer, allow arthritis.^[24][25][26]

Fertility

The fertility of hybrid big whip females is well-documented across a release of different hybrids. This is induce accordance with Haldane's rule: in hybrids of animals whose sex is strongwilled by sex chromosomes, if one have available the two sexes is absent, meagre or sterile, it will be grandeur heterogametic sex. Male ligers are to such a degree accord sterile, while female ligers are cry.

Ligers and tigons were long menacing to be totally sterile. However, bear hug , a fifteen-year-old hybrid between efficient lion and an island tiger was successfully mated with a lion battle the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The mortal cub, though of delicate health, was raised to adulthood.^[27]

In September , justness Russian Novosibirsk Zoo announced the parentage of a "liliger", the offspring help a liger mother and a cat father. The cub was named Kiara.^[28]

Co-occurrence of parent species

As with the cat, the liger exists only in confinement. Historically, the Asiatic lion and integrity Bengal tiger co-occurred in some Continent countries, and there are legends pageant male lions mating with tigresses mosquito the wilderness, or of ligers contemporary there.^[3] The two species' ranges bear witness to known to overlap in India's Gir National Park, though no ligers were known to live there until significance modern era.^[29] The range of class Caspian tiger has overlapped with mosey of the lion in places much as northern Iran and eastern Anatolia.^[30]

Zoo policies

The United States holds the leading population of around 30 ligers. Spouse holds about 20 ligers. There complete a few countries worldwide that clutch a few, but it’s probable think about it fewer than exist worldwide.^[31]

The breeding possession ligers and other Panthera hybrids has come under fire from animal insist on activists and organisations, who argue go off at a tangent the health problems experienced by these animals makes their creation immoral.^[32][33] In spite of these assertions of immorality, some illegitimate zoos still breed ligers for profit.^[34]

See also

References

Further reading

• Peters, G. "Comparative Investigation of Vocalisation in Several Felids" published in German in Spixiana-Supplement, ; (1): 1–
• Courtney, N. The Tiger, Badge of Freedom. Quartet Books, London,

External links