Why aren’t hybrid cats photographed?
For the past hour, I’ve been researching the many different combonations of hybrid cats, the most popular being the Liger and Tigon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_hybrid#Liguar
Strangely enough, out of the 16 combonations of hybrid cats, only 2-3 of them have even been photographed, the Liger being the most photographed and famous.
Yet.. there are apparently many of these un-photographed hybrids in existance, spread out in zoos across the world.
“A jagupard, jagulep, or jagleop, is the hybrid of a jaguar and a leopardess. A single rosetted, female jagupard was produced at a zoo in Chicago. Jaguar-leopard hybrids bred at Hellbrun Zoo, Salzburg were described as jagupards which conforms to the usual portmanteau naming convention.”
“On April 9, 2006, two Jaglions were born at Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, Barrie (north of Toronto), Ontario, Canada. Jahzara (female) and Tsunami (male) were the result of an unintended mating between a black jaguar called Diablo and a lioness called Lola who had been hand-raised together and were inseparable. They were kept apart when Lola came into oestrus. Tsunami is spotted, but Jahzara is a melanistic jaglion due to inheriting the jaguar’s dominant melanism gene. It was not previously known how the jaguar’s dominant melanism gene would interact with lion coloration genes.”
“At the Altiplano Zoo in the city of San Pablo Apetatlan (near Tlaxcala, México) the crossbreeding of a male Siberian tiger and a female jaguar from the southern Chiapas jungle produced a male Tiguar named Mickey. The specimen is in exhibition at a 400 m2 habitat and as of June 2009, is two years old and weighs 180 kg (397 lb).”
“A lipard was born in Schoenbrunn Zoo, Vienna in 1951. The father was a 2 year old 250 kg lion 1.08 m tall at the shoulders and 1.8 m long (excluding tail). The mother was a 3.5 year old leopardess weighing only 38 kg. The female cub was born overnight on 26/27 August 1982 after 92–93 days gestation. The mother began to over-groom the cub and later bit off its tail. The cub was then hand-reared. The parents mated again in November 1982 and the leopardess appeared pregnant, however the lion continued to mate her and they had to be kept apart.
Another lipard was born in Florence, Italy (it is often erroneously referred to as a leopon). It was born on the grounds of a paper mill near Florence to a lion and leopardess acquired from a Rome zoo. Their owner had 2 tigers, 2 lions and a leopardess as pets and did not expect or intend them to breed. The lion/leopard hybrid cub came as a surprise to the owner who originally thought the small spotted creature in the cage was a stray domestic cat. The cub had the body conformation of a lion cub with a large head (a lion trait) but receding forehead (a leopard trait), fawn fur and thick brown spotting. When it reached 5 months old, the owner offered it for sale and set about trying to breed more.”
I guess my question is, out of all of these “other”, unpublicized hybrids of cats, why are none of them photographed? Two of these hybrids live in a zoo only a few hours away from me. How hard is it to go there and take a picture?
Its baffling.. are these animals being kept a secret? I appriciate all answers.
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Sorry I don’t have a better answer to your question except that there was an article on the yahoo news about exactly that a few days ago with lots of pictures. Apparently a slow news day. It is an interesting question which I think has yet to be addressed by the ethicists