Hybrid Big Cats

Zoos and menageries once bred exotic-looking hybrid big cats to attract the public just as hybrid small cats (Bengal, Chausie etc.) are now bred as pets. Hybrids are unlikely in the wild. Where big cat species have overlapping territories, they usually have different lifestyles and rarely meet. If they do meet, conflict is more likely than romance. To deliberately breed hybrids, the parent cats are raised together to overcome any natural enmity between their species. Some hybrids occur accidentally where different cat species were housed together for convenience; the keepers did not realise that the cats would - or even could - mate. The urge to mate can be so strong that they will mate with each other if there is no available partner of their own species.

"Give it to me baby, oh yeah gimme gimme gimme... Roooaaarr..."

These inter-species copulation give rise to liger (lion rams tigress) and tigon (tiger rams lioness).

"Oh yeah you lioness, I gotcha I gotcha I gotcha..."

A liger is bigger than either parent, 10 - 12 ft in length - making it the biggest hybrid cat and, for many people, the most fascinating. Ligers vary in appearance depending on how the genes interact and on which subspecies of lion and tiger are bred together. In general, males grow sparse leonine manes and the facial ruff of a tiger. Males and females have spotted bellies and a striped back. They roar like lions and "chuff" like tigers.

"My dad's name is Leo and he got drunk one nite and fcuked a tigress from next door."

The liger's huge testicles are for display only. Most often than not, they are infertile.

Tigons (alternative names are tion, tigron or tiglon) are currently rarer than ligers. It is suggested that male tigers find the courtship behaviour of a lioness too subtle and may miss behavioural cues that she is willing to mate (though lionesses actively solicit mating). It is more likely that their smaller size makes them less attractive exhibits than ligers. This is borne out by the fact that in the 19th century and early 20th century, tigons were more common than ligers.

Tigon cubs.

The mess doesn't ends here. Female tigons and ligers are often fertile and can mate with a lion, tiger or in theory with another species such as leopard or jaguar. What if the female liger gets horny and mates with a pure bred lion or tiger? The resulting cubs would be named li-liger or ti-liger. The same goes for a horny tigon's litter; li-tigon or ti-tigon. Let's not delve into cross-breeds with leopards or jaguars. Happy digesting these messy shits!

Footnote:
If Tarzan mates with a female orang utan, what would his son look like? One thing for sure, he would be named Tarz-utan.