“naturally” Produced Ligers?
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Has there ever been any liger produced through natural means? That is to say, intercourse between the lion and tiger parents or are they all artificially inseminated? I’m just wondering if they have ever tamed a lion and a tiger so much that they would go against the natural order and have intercourse themselves.
This question is not asking whether or not liger’s occured in the wild. I’m talking about a domesticated envrionment, here, I’m just talking about the natural form of procreation.
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Yes, Ligers have been produced (in zoos, of course), through “normal” mating of a lion and tiger. Ligers have been known in zoos since the late 1800’s, long before artificial insemination technology was available.
Also, the roles of zoos have changed quite a bit since then. It used to be popular to have oddities in zoos that would attract paying customers, but these days zoos are more about breeding and preservation of endangered species. I don’t think a zoo would undergo the expensive and difficult AI process to produce a sterile animal.
So yes, tigers and lions, in the absence of a partner of their own species, will have sex. I guess the “natural” order is more than about what species you are or what continent you’re from.
From wikipedia:
“According to The Tiger, Symbol of Freedom rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild.[3] Under exceptional circumstances it has been known for a tiger to be forced into ranges inhabited by the Asiatic Lion, Panthera leo persica, which is a different species as the tiger, Panthera tigris. This may have occurred in the Gir Forest in India where the ranges of Asiatic Lions and Bengal Tigers overlap. This combination of species in the wild however is considered improbable.[4]”
Some reports have been made of seeing these in the wild, just outside of India, and the word Liger was entered into usage in the 1930’s (way before napoleon dynamite was around)
No, I don’t think so. It’s just an animal that Napoleon Dynamite imagined.