A tigon (), tiglon () (

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordshybrid offspring of a male

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living 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 preys on ...

(''Panthera tigris'') and a female

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, 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 dimorphi ...

(''Panthera leo'').Techné v6n3 – Patenting and Transgenic Organisms: A Philosophical Exploration
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 Mane may refer to: * Mane (horse), the line of hair along the spine of the neck * Mane (lion), the hair found around the male mammal's neck In arts and entertainment * ''Mane'' (film) is a 1990 Kannada language film directed by Girish Kasaravall ...

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 b ...

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 The liger is a hybrid offspring of a male lion (''Panthera leo'') and a female tiger (''Panthera tigris''). The liger has parents in the same genus but of different species. The liger is distinct from the similar hybrid called the tigon, and ...

, which is a hybrid of a male lion and a female tiger.

Fertility

Guggisberg wrote that

s and tigons were long thought to be

sterile Sterile or sterility may refer to: *Asepsis, a state of being free from biological contaminants * Sterile (archaeology), a sediment deposit which contains no evidence of human activity *Sterilization (microbiology), any process that eliminates or ...

; 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 Thalkirc ...

. 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 ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

, 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 A litigon (/ˌlaɪˈtaɪɡən/) is a rare, second-generation hybrid from a female tigon (a hybrid between a male tiger and a female lion) and a male lion, specifically an Asiatic lion. Description Litigons inherit and share characteristics w ...

. 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 This is a list of supporting characters of Luke Cage and Iron Fist, appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Allies * El Aguila – Mutant swashbuckler and costumed crime fighter. * Noah Burstein – The scientist who gives L ...

, 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 inhabi ...

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 bl ...

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

, 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 in ...

in the wilderness 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 Mi ...

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 Turkm ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

.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 Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, also known as Sasan Gir, is a forest, national park, and wildlife sanctuary near Talala Gir in Gujarat, India. It is located north-east of Somnath, south-east of Junagadh and south-west of Amreli. ...

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.

References

External links

Detailed Information of hybrid big cats.Liger
snopes.com.
Questions about Animals
Gk12.iastate.edu. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1383362 Panthera hybrids

Fertility

Coexistence of parental species

See also

References

External links