| Ligers
really do exist. The liger is a hybrid with a lion father
and a tiger mother, if the father was a tiger and the
mother was a lion the hybrid would be called a tigon.
Lions and tigers have he same number of chromosomes
which makes for successful mating. Their natural habitats
are on different continents so ligers and tigons are
found only in captivity. |
| Ligers
and tigons are usually believed to be sterile
but this is not necessarily true. Shambala once
also had a tigon, the beautiful Noelle, who was
born at Christmas, 1978. She also had a vocabulary
of both lion and tiger sounds, and light stripes.
Because she was a hybrid, everyone "knew"
she was sterile, and so she joined Anton, a male
Siberian tiger. To the surprise of everyone, including
Shambala's veterinarians, she gave birth on September
16, 1983 to an extremely rare "ti-tigon."
He was given the name Nathaniel, after Tippi Hedren's
real name of Nathalie. From the beginning, Noelle
"spoke" only tiger to her rambunctious
cub. Nathaniel grew to be quite large, like Patrick.
As he was three-quarters tiger, Nathaniel's stripes
were darker than his mother's, and he had no mane.
Sadly, both Noelle and Nathaniel are no longer
with us. |
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| Mixed
species tend to be larger than either original species
from which they came. Their internal organs are not
proportionally large for their body size so they do
not tend to live as long as lions or tigers. They possess
the attributes of both species and are bilingual. Our
liger Patrick chuffs like a tiger and roars like a lion.
His fur is cinnamon in color with caramel stripes and
he has a mane although it is shorter than that of a
full male lion. |
| To
read a National Geographic article on ligers click
here. |
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