What happens when a tiger and a lion mate?

In the wild, in zoos or sanctuaries, lions and tigers sometimes mate, creating strange "hybrids".

Many of us must have seen videos or pictures of animals that look like lions, but also carry tiger features such as black stripes, darker orange. Strange "hybrid" when tiger and lion decide to mate.

Strange "hybrids" when tigers and lions decide to mate.

However, most of these cases often have birth defects that lead to death shortly after birth, or become abnormal in size as they grow up. Hybrids also often have problems interacting with members of the parent species because their behavioral traits often manifest as a mixture of habits of both species, rather than those of one or the other. .

According to the general definition, there are 2 main hybrid species: Liger (male + female tiger) and Tigon (male + female lion). In addition, if the Ligers and Tigons continue to mate with other members of the pack, they will produce many hybrid variants later such as: Ti-liger (male + female liger), Ti-tagon (male tiger). + female tigon), Li-liger (male lion + female liger), Li-tagon (male lion + female tigon).

In which, the easiest to see are Liger and Tigon. As of 2019, about 100 Ligers and fewer than 100 Tigons are thought to exist, mostly in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries.

1. Tiger (Liger)

The liger is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. 

The tiger lion has the scientific name Panthera leo x Panthera tigris, is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. They range in size from 2.9 to 3.3 meters, in appearance with orange or beige color, black feather stripes on the back and spots on the abdomen mixed with black and dark brown patches, males may have a short mane. .

The lion is the largest animal in the cat family, with an individual weighing more than 320kg on average. In 1973, a male tiger lion living at Bloemfontein Zoo in South Africa was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest feline animal in the world with a weight of up to 798kg.

The first known breeding between male and female lions in captivity probably occurred around the late 1700s.

According to scientists, the tiger's large weight is due to changes in growth genes. Specifically, the male lion has a very strong growth gene, but the female tiger does not have the corresponding growth restriction gene.

Therefore, the tiger lion always weighs more than its parents. Even many people believe that this species does not stop growing in size throughout its life.

2. Tiger (Tigon)

A liger is a cross between a male tiger and a female lion.

In contrast to the liger, the liger (Panthera tigris x Panthera leo) is a cross between a male tiger and a female lion. They are significantly smaller in size than ligers, measuring only 1.2 to 2.7 meters long, and are often short-sighted.

The reason this happens is because male tigers do not have growth genes, and female lions have growth inhibitory genes, making Tigon often smaller than both parents.

In addition, because the fertilization rate when the male tiger mates with the female lion is not as high as that of the male lion combined with the female tiger, at the present time, the number of ligers is much less than that of ligers. Like all crossbreed cats, they frequently suffer from neurological defects, infertility, cancer, arthritis, organ failure, and reduced life expectancy.

An isolated case was recorded at Alipore Zoo in India, when a female tigress named Rudhrani, born in 1971, successfully mated with an Asian lion named Debabrata. Rudhrani has given birth to 7 liggon hybrids, and most of these have had stable births over many years.