Friday 20 March 2009

This is crazy, The Liger! and Tigron!

Rarely am i lost for words


Tigron


Liger-The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion and a female tiger. It is denoted scientifically as Panthera tigris × Panthera leo.A liger resembles a lion with diffused stripes. They are the largest cats in the world, although the Siberian Tiger is the largest pure sub-species. Like tigers, but unlike lions, ligers enjoy swimming. A similar hybrid, the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion is called a tigon.Rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild.Under exceptional circumstances it has been known for a tiger to be forced into ranges inhabited by the Asiatic Lion, Panthera leo persica; however, this combination of species in the wild is considered highly unlikely.
Size and growth:
Imprinted genes may be a factor contributing to liger size.These are genes that may or may not be expressed depending on the parent they are inherited from, and that occasionally play a role in issues of hybrid growth. For example, in some mice species crosses, genes that are expressed only when maternally-inherited cause the young to grow larger than is typical for either parent species. This growth is not seen in the paternal species, as such genes are normally "counteracted" by genes inherited from the female of the appropriate species.The tiger produces a hormone that sets the fetal liger on a pattern of growth that does not end throughout its life. The hormonal hypothesis is that the cause of the male liger's growth is its sterility — essentially, the male liger remains in the pre-pubertal growth phase. This is not upheld by behavioural evidence - despite being sterile, many male ligers become sexually mature and mate with females. Male ligers also have the same levels of testosterone ng/dl on average as an adult male lion. In addition, female ligers also attain great size, weighing approximately 700 lb (320 kg) and reaching 10 feet (3.05 m) long on average, and are often fertile.

Longevity-18-26 years
Fertility:
While male ligers are sterile, female ligers are fertile, and they can reproduce. Because only female ligers and tigons are fertile, a liger cannot reproduce with a tigon.If a liger were to reproduce with a tiger, it would be called a ti-liger, and if it were to reproduce with a lion, it would be called a li-liger. The fertility of hybrid big cat females is well-documented across a number of different hybrids. This is in accordance with Haldane's rule: in hybrids of animals whose gender is determined by sex chromosomes, if one gender is absent, rare or sterile, it is the heterogametic sex (the one with two different sex chromosomes e.g. X and Y).According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C. A. W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile: In 1943, however, a fifteen-year-old hybrid between a lion and an 'Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The female cub, although of delicate health, was raised to adulthood.



The history of ligers dates to at least the early 19th century in Asia. A painting of two liger cubs was made by Michael Isasi (1772−1844). 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 after being born in 1837, were exhibited to William IV and to his successor 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.
In Animal planet and the World of Tigers and lions and tigers (1902–1903), A.H. Bryden described Hagenbeck's "lion-tiger" hybrids:

All of the above has either come from wikipedia or some liger website.... If it is not true someone please tell me. Crazy!

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