Tigon facts for kids
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A tigon or tiglon is a hybrid cross between a male tiger and a female lion. Thus, it has parents with the same genus but of different species. The tigon is not currently as common as the converse hybrid, the liger. In general ligers are gentle, even-tempered and tolerant.
Contents
Appearance
The tigon's genome includes genetic components of both parents, thus they can exhibit visible characteristics from both parents: they can have both spots from the mother and stripes from the father. Any mane that a male tigon may have will appear shorter and less noticeable than a lion's mane and is closer in type to the ruff of a male tiger.
It is a common misconception that tigons are smaller than lions or tigers. They do not exceed the size of their parent species because they inherit growth-inhibitory genes from the lioness mother, but they do not exhibit any kind of dwarfism or miniaturization; they often weigh around 180 kilograms (400 lb).
Reproduction
At the Alipore Zoo in India, a female tigon was successfully mated to an Asiatic lion. Some of these reached impressive sizes of at least 363 kilograms (800 lb), stood 1.32 metres (4.3 ft) at the shoulder, and was 3.5 metres (11 ft) in total length.
Reports also exist of the similar titigon, resulting from the cross between a female tigon and a male tiger. Titigons resemble golden tigers but with less contrast in their markings. A female tigon shared an enclosure in the Shambala Preserve with a male Siberian tiger, due to the keepers' belief that she was sterile, though he was wrong and the female produced a titigon. This animal was three-quarters tiger, he had darker stripes than his mother and vocalized more like a tiger, rather than with the mix of sounds used by his mother. Being only about quarter-lion, Nathaniel did not grow a mane.
The tigon is found only in captivity, because the habitats of the lion and tiger do not overlap.
Images for kids
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Tigon
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Tigon
See also
In Spanish: Tigón para niños
