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You are here: Home / Animals / What Happens When Lions and Tigers Mate and What are the Hybrid Cross-Bred Offspring Called?

What Happens When Lions and Tigers Mate and What are the Hybrid Cross-Bred Offspring Called?

June 30, 2020 by Karen Hill

Lions and Tigers never mate in the wild.

liger cub

But they sometimes do in in big cat refuges in the United States, resulting in hybrid cross-breed babies. The offspring are called ligers and tigons, or sometimes, illogically, tiglons.

A liger is the result of a male lion mating with a tigress, while the tigon, or tiglon, is from a male tiger and a lioness.

Ligers enjoy swimming which is a characteristic of tigers and are very sociable like lions. But unlike lions, ligers are more likely to live past birth.

The history of ligers dates to at least the early 19th century in India.

Both hybrids are a tawny color with pale stripes, with the tigon’s stripes more prominent than the liger’s. As far as we know, these hybrids are incapable of producing young.

Maybe that’s just as well, the mind boggles at what might happen if they crossed a tigon with a liger.

Related Facts

  • If a Group of Lions is Called a Pride, What is a Group of Tigers Called and Why?
  • Why Do Tigers Have Stripes?
  • Are There Really Such Animals as Ligers and Tigons?
  • How Do Lions Reproduce and How Often Do Lions Mate?
  • Why Are White Tigers an Endangered Species and How Many White Tigers Are Left in the Wild?
  • History of Cats

Filed Under: Animals

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « How Difficult is it to Breed Tigers in Captivity and Do Zoos Still Capture Tigers From The Wild?
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