A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[hybrid offspring of a male ](_blank)tiger
The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living Felidae, cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily pr ...
(''Panthera tigris'') and a female lion
The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adu ...
(''Panthera leo'').[Techné v6n3 – Patenting and Transgenic Organisms: A Philosophical Exploration](_blank)
Scholar.lib.vt.edu. Retrieved on 17 September 2013. They exhibit visible characteristics from both parents: they can have both spots from the mother (lions carry genes for spots – lion cubs are spotted and some adults retain faint markings) 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
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
from both parents, but they do not exhibit any kind of dwarfism
Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dw ...
or miniaturization; they often weigh around , compared to ligers which often weigh from to It is distinct from the liger, which is a hybrid of a male lion and a female tiger.
Fertility
Guggisberg wrote that ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile
Sterile or sterility may refer to:
*Asepsis
Asepsis is the state of being free from disease-causing micro-organisms (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses, pathogenic fungi, and parasites). There are two categories of asepsis: medical and surgi ...
; in 1943, however, a 15-year-old hybrid between a lion and an "Island" tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo
Hellabrunn Zoo (or Tierpark Hellabrunn in German) is a 40 hectare (99 acre) zoological garden in the Bavarian capital of Munich. The zoo is situated on the right bank of the river Isar, in the southern part of Munich near the quarter of Thalki ...
. The female cub was then raised to adulthood. Like the liger, male tigons are sterile while the females are fertile.
At the Alipore Zoo
The Zoological Garden, Alipore (also informally called the Alipore Zoo or Kolkata Zoo) is India's oldest formally stated zoological park (as opposed to royal and British menageries) and a big tourist attraction in Kolkata, West Bengal. It has b ...
in India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, a tigoness named Rudhrani, born in 1971, was successfully mated to a male Asiatic lion
The Asiatic lion is a population of '' Panthera leo leo'' that today survives in the wild only in India. Since the turn of the 20th century, its range has been restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujar ...
named Debabrata. The rare, second generation hybrid was called a litigon. Rudhrani produced seven litigons in her lifetime. Some of these reached impressive sizes - a litigon named Cubanacan weighed at least , stood at the shoulder, and was in total length.The litigon rediscovered
www.natureasia.com. Retrieved on 22 July 2017.
Reports also exist of the similar titigon , resulting from the cross between a female tigon and a male tiger. Titigons resemble golden tigers, but with less contrast in their markings. A tigoness born in 1978, named Noelle, shared an enclosure in the Shambala Preserve with a male Siberian tiger
The Siberian tiger or Amur tiger is a population of the tiger subspecies '' Panthera tigris tigris'' native to the Russian Far East, Northeast China and possibly North Korea. It once ranged throughout the Korean Peninsula, but currently inh ...
called Anton, due to the keepers' belief that she was sterile. In 1983 Noelle produced a titigon named Nathaniel. As Nathaniel was three-quarters tiger, he had darker stripes than Noelle and vocalized more like a tiger, rather than with the mix of sounds used by his mother. Being only about quarter-lion, Nathaniel did not grow a mane. Nathaniel died of cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
at the age of nine years old. Noelle also developed a severe cancer, that killed her not long after she was diagnosed.
Coexistence of parental species
As with the liger, the tigon is found only in captivity, because the habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
s of the lion and tiger do not overlap. In the past, however, the Asiatic lion did coexist with the Bengal tiger
The Bengal tiger is a population of the '' Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna.
The tiger is estimated to have been present i ...
in the wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
of India, besides occurring in countries where the Caspian tiger
The Caspian tiger was a ''Panthera tigris tigris'' population native to eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus around the Caspian Sea, Central Asia to northern Afghanistan, and the Xinjiang region in western China. Until the M ...
had been, such as Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
.[Pocock, R. I. (1939)]
''The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Mammalia. – Volume 1''
Taylor and Francis Ltd., London. Pp. 199–222. In India, there is a plan
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. ...
to shift some lions from their current home of the Gir Forest to Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary
Kuno National Park is national park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, India. It derives its name from Kuno River. It was established in 1981 as a wildlife sanctuary with an initial area of in the Sheopur and Morena districts. In 2018 ...
, which has some tigers, but it has not been implemented as of December 2017, perhaps due to political reasons, as the Gujarat state government does not want any other state to have lions in the forests.
See also
* Liger
*Carl Hagenbeck
Carl Hagenbeck (10 June 1844 – 14 April 1913) was a German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natural hab ...
*Felid hybrid
A felid hybrid is any of a number of hybrids between various species of the cat family, Felidae. This article deals with hybrids between the species of the subfamily Felinae (feline hybrids).
For hybrids between two species of the genus ''Panth ...
*Leopon
A leopon (portmanteau of ''leopard'' and ''lion'') is the hybrid offspring of a male leopard and a female lion. The head of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the body carries similarities to leopards. These hybrids are p ...
* Hybrid growth disorders
** Genomic imprinting
* List of portmanteaus
* Maltese tiger
* ''Panthera'' hybrid
References
External links
Detailed Information of hybrid big cats.
Liger
snopes.com.
Questions about Animals
Gk12.iastate.edu.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1383362
Panthera hybrids