A member of the cat family, resulting from the mating of a male lion with a female tiger. The offspring produced when a male tiger mates with a female lion is called a tigon.
The liger is a cross (a hybrid) between a male lion and a female tiger. A liger looks like a giant lion with diffused stripes. Like tigers, but unlike lions, ligers enjoy swimming.
A cross between a male tiger and a female lion is called a tigon. This would have referred to the Gir Forest in India where the ranges of Asiatic Lions and Bengal Tigers overlap. Under exceptional circumstances it has been known for a tiger to be forced into ranges inhabited by the Asian lion, Panthera leo persica, which is the same genus as the tiger. Reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild and producing offspring known as ligers.
History
Cuvier reported a litter of three lion-tiger "mules" born in October 1824 in England, United Kingdom to an African lion and an Asiatic tigress owned by an itinerant exhibitor and animal dealer.
Two of the liger cubs were painted by Geoffrey St Hilaire (1772 - 1844).
Two liger cubs born in 1837 were exhibited to William IV and to his successor Victoria.
In Animal Life and the World of Nature (1902-1903), A H Bryden described Hagenbeck's "lion-tiger" hybrids: It has remained for one of the most enterprising collectors and naturalists of our time, Mr Carl Hagenbeck, not only to breed, but to bring successfully to a healthy maturity, specimens of this rare alliance between those two great and formidable felidae, the lion and tiger. This fine beast, now more than five years old, equals and even excels in his proportions a well-grown lion, measuring as he does from nose tip to tail 10 ft 2 inches in length, and standing only three inches less than 4 ft at the shoulder. A good big lion will weigh about 400 lb [...] the hybrid in question, weighing as it does no less than 467 lb, is certainly the superior of most well-grown lions, whether wild-bred or born in a menagerie. It has a somewhat lion-like head, and the tail is more like that of a lion than of a tiger. It is a huge and very powerful beast.
In 1935, four ligers from two litters, were reared in the Zoological Gardens of Bloemfontein, South Africa. and stood a foot and a half taller than a full grown male lion at the shoulder.
Although ligers are more commonly found than tigons today, in "At Home In The Zoo" (1961), Gerald Iles wrote For the record I must say that I have never seen a liger, a hybrid obtained by crossing a lion with a tigress. They seem to be even rarer than tigons.
Canberra Zoo in Australian had a liger which recently died (2006)
Large size
Ligers grow much larger than lions and even larger than the largest tigers, which can weigh in excess of 386 kg (850 lb). Some ligers have been estimated to weigh well over 550 kg (1200 lb), over twice the size of a male lion;
Imprinted genes may be a factor contributing to liger size.
Another possible hypothesis is that the growth dysplasia results from the interaction between lion genes and tiger womb environment. 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.
Longevity
Shasta, a ligress (female liger) was born at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City on May 14th, 1948 and died in 1972 at age 24. The 1973 Guinness world records reported an 18 year old, 750 lb male liger living at Bloemfontein zoological gardens, South Africa in 1953.
Fertility
Male ligers are sterile, but female ligers are fertile and can breed with tigers (resulting in ti-ligers) or to lions (resulting in li-ligers).
According to Wild Cats Of The World (1975) by Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile: In 1943, however, a fifteen year old hybrid between a lion and an 'Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The female cub, even though very delicate, was raised to adulthood.
More recently, a self-styled behavioural research program in the USA bred a female ti-liger called Lady Kali.
Vocalisation and behavior
Ligers may exhibit emotional or behavioural conflicts due to their mixed ancestry.
They inherit different or mixed vocabularies (tigers "chuff", lions roar).
They may inherit conflicting behavioral 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.
Colors
Ligers have a tiger-like striping pattern on a lion-like tawny background. In addition they may inherit rosettes from the lion parent (lion cubs are rosetted and some adults retain faint markings).
White tigers have been crossed with lions to produce "white" (actually pale golden) ligers. In theory white tigers could be crossed with white lions to produce white, very pale or even stripeless ligers. A black liger would require both a melanistic tiger and a melanistic lion as parents. No reports of black lions have ever been substantiated.
Zoo policies
According to the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, accredited zoos frown on the practice of mixing two different species and have never bred ligers.
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