Panthera leo × tigris

Liger (scientific name: Panthera leo×tigris), also known as liger in English, is the offspring of a lion and a tiger. It is huge in size. Like lions and tigers, it is a member of the genus Panthera in the family Felidae. It looks similar to a lion, but has tiger stripes on its body.

The world's first liger was born in France. In a French zoo, Harry, a male African lion, and Zhenzhen, a female Siberian tiger, lived together for four years. During these four years, they got to know each other and fell in love, and finally got together and gave birth to their baby "Lili" in 1981. Lili lived in this world for 20 years and died of illness in September 2001. It is currently the longest-lived liger in the world.

In my country's Hainan Tropical Wildlife Park, the male lion Xiao Erhei and the female tiger Huanhuan are considered heroic parents of ligers. They gave birth to 10 little ligers three times in 2005, 2006 and 2007. In early 2008, the Lion and Tiger Ecological Park of Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo also staged a legendary love story. The female Bengal white tiger "Xiaoxue" fell in love with the male African lion who grew up with her despite her family's opposition, and took the initiative to pursue him, eventually achieving a marriage and giving birth to 3 little ligers. On May 24, 2021, at the Quanzhou Haisi Wildlife World in Majia Town, Luojiang District, a female tiger successfully gave birth to a liger cub, and the child's father was a male lion.

The lion's head is very huge, the largest among cats. In order to lift its big head, the lion has grown higher shoulders and stronger forelimbs. But ligers only inherited the big head of the lion father, but not the thick skeleton of the lion father. The streamlined body inherited from the tiger mother is obviously not enough to support such a huge head. Therefore, most ligers will appear to be slow in movement and lack the necessary coordination when running, so that they look stupid. With such a physique, it is probably difficult to catch prey in the wild. In addition, ligers have low immunity and are more susceptible to diseases, so it is difficult for them to grow up. They often die in infancy, and the survival rate is only about one in five hundred thousand.

The offspring of female ligers and male tigers are called tigons, and the offspring of female ligers and male lions are called lion-ligers, which are extremely rare in the world. Since tigons and lion-ligers are not the offspring of ligers and lion-tigers, and there is no data to prove that they have the ability to reproduce and breed offspring, they do not violate the reproductive isolation rules.

Ligers are only the result of artificial breeding and are not wild animals. The objects specified in the national protected animals must be wild animals, and wild animals must have the following two characteristics: 1. They have a certain population and do not need to rely on external conditions to survive. For example, tigers and lions have specific populations and exist independently. 2. They can survive independently in the wild and can survive, develop normally, and reproduce offspring without intervention.

Protect wild animals and eliminate game.

Maintaining ecological balance is everyone's responsibility!

Mainly distributed in a few countries such as France

The offspring of a lion and a tiger are huge and look like lions, but have tiger stripes on their bodies. A tiger weighs about 300 kg, a lion weighs about 250 kg, and a liger weighs about 400 kg. Like tigers, they like to swim. Ligers are larger than lions or tigers because male tigers and female lions pass on the gene that controls growth to their offspring. Since ligers are not the offspring of male tigers and female lions, they lack this gene, so their growth is uncontrolled. Ligers will continue to grow from birth until their bodies can no longer bear it.