Tigon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tigon is a hybrid cross between a female Panthera leo (lion), and a male Panthera tigris (tiger). The tigon is not currently as common as the converse hybrid, the liger; however, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tigons were more common than ligers.
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. It is a common misconception that Tigons are smaller than lions or tigers. They do not exceed the size of their parent species because they inherit growth-inhibitory genes from the lioness mother, but they do not exhibit any kind of dwarfism or miniaturisation; they often weigh around 150 kilograms (350 lb). They appear "housecat-like".
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 the current rarity of tigons is most likely due to their being less impressive in size than ligers, with a corresponding lesser novelty value. A century ago, tigons were evidently more common than ligers. Gerald Iles, in At Home In The Zoo (1961) was able to obtain three 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.
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[edit] History
Tigers crosses in captivity have been common for centuries. The first recorded cross-breeding in India dates back to 1837 when a tigon was presented to Queen Victoria from the princess of Jamnagar (an Indian state). India has a long history of keeping and breeding tigers, especially the "white tigers" now found in zoos around the world. Gerald Iles also referred to a travelling circus in the 1830 whose tiger and lioness produced litter after litter of hybrid cubs, some of which were exhibited to British royalty in 1838.
One of the best known tigons was Ranji, bred by Prince Ranjitsinji of Nawangagar and presented to the London Zoo in 1928. Frohawk, an artist and writer for the hunting magazine The Field found Ranji shy and said:
- The hybrid favors the tiger rather than the lion in the shape of the body and head and it is particularly interesting to note that although the creature is a male, the mane is not larger than that possessed by some tigers and there is at most a small tuft at the end of the tail. The coat, however, is tawny and entirely lacks the reddish-orange hue characteristic of all tigers except those of the colder regions of central Asia. The stripes, nevertheless, although comparatively faint are clearly traceable and the lower parts of the body are whitish as in tigers.
In Wonders of Animal Life edited by J.A. Hammerton (1930), Ranji is described:
- At the zoological Gardens in London there has been produced a most interesting hybrid between a tiger and a lion. It has been dubbed the "tigon". It is decidedly not a noble-looking beast, is very long in the leg, where the stripes are most prominent, and of a general sandy hue.
Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester, England had a succession of tigons between 1936 and 1968. Kliou (male) and Maude (female) were bred at the Dresden Zoo, Germany from a Manchurian tiger and an African lioness. They did not get along with each other (like solitary tigers rather than social lions) and were housed separately. Kliou died in spring 1941. Maude died in December 1949. In 1957, Belle Vue zoo obtained another tigon called Rita; she was smaller than either Kliou or Maude and lived until February 1968.
In July 1998, the Indian Express newspaper reported the approaching death of the country's last known surviving zoo tigon. Rangini, born in 1974, resembled a lioness in size and shape, but with a slightly smaller head and jaw and a brighter yellow coat with faint tiger-like stripes. Although the zoo had already bred a female ligon (See #Fertility below), Rangini was not allowed to have a mate due to pressure to end the breeding of hybrids. The zoo had also found male tigons and male li-tigons to be infertile. In 1985, the Indian Government forbade the cross-breeding of lions and tigers following a campaign by the Worldwide Fund for Nature. This ended a long tradition of lion/tiger breedings in India.
[edit] Fertility
In Wild Cats Of The World (1975), Guggisberg wrote that 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.
Male tigons are sterile while the females are generally fertile. At the Alipore Zoo in India, a female tigon named Rudhrani, born in 1971, was successfully mated to an Asiatic Lion named Debabrata. The rare, second generation hybrid was called a li-tigon. Rudhrani produced seven li-tigons in her lifetime. Some of these reached impressive sizes—a li-tigon named Cubanacan (died 1991) weighed at least 800lb (363 kg), stood 52 inches (1.32 metres) at the shoulder, and was 11.5ft (3.5 m) in total length.
Reports also exist of the similar ti-tigon, resulting from the cross between a female tigon and a male tiger. Ti-tigons resemble golden tigers but with less contrast in their markings. A female tigon born in 1978, named Noelle, shared an enclosure in the Shambala Reserve with a male Siberian Tiger called Anton, in the belief that she was sterile. In 1983, Noelle produced a ti-tigon named Nathaniel. As Nathaniel was three quarters tiger, he had darker stripes than Noelle and "spoke" tiger rather than the mix of sounds used by his mother. Being only about quarter lion, Nathaniel did not grow a mane. Nathaniel died at age eight or nine years old due to cancer. Noelle also developed cancer and died soon after.
