Liger

The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion (Panthera leo) and a tigress (Panthera tigris). Thus, it has parents of the same genus but of different species. It is distinct from the similar hybrid tigon. While the Siberian tiger is the largest pure sub-species, ligers are believed to be the largest of all known extant felines. Ligers exist only in captivity or zoos because the habitats of the parental species do not overlap in the wild. Historically, when the Asiatic Lion was prolific, the territories of lions and tigers did overlap and there are legends of ligers existing in the wild. Although ligers share characteristics of both lions and tigers, they more closely resemble lions because of the dominant gene. Notably, ligers typically grow larger than either parent species, unlike the tigon, which tends to be about as large as a female tiger and is the cross between a male tiger and a lioness. Most ligers suffer from embryonic fatality or premature death, and those that survive are often genetically or physically sterile and therefore unable to reproduce and continue their lineage. The history of ligers dates to at least the early 19th century in India. In 1798, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) made a colour plate of the offspring of a lion and a tiger. In 1825, G. B. Whittaker made an engraving of liger cubs born in 1824. The parents and their three liger offspring are also depicted with their trainer in a 19th-century painting in the naïve style. Two liger cubs born in 1837 were exhibited to King William IV and to his successor Queen Victoria. On 14 December 1900 and on 31 May 1901, Carl Hagenbeck wrote to zoologist James Cossar Ewart with details and photographs of ligers born at the Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg in 1897.