ANIMAL WORLD

                     CROSS BREEDING

Cross breeding is an age long system usually practiced by mixing different breeds and species of animal together so as to come about a new progeny, picking different morphology and genetic traits from both parents.

Until roughly the 1700’s, selective breeding did not really exist. People from preference, chose to mate their animals with other animals in the neighborhood. There was no special method of selecting animals for reproduction, other than the physical appearance, such as; the height, meat to bone ratio, fur, behavior etc.

In Europe, Sir Robert Bakewell (1725-1795) was the one who introduced keeping accurate records of performance of animals so that objective selection became possible. He used inbreeding (mating of related animals with similar traits) to fix certain characteristics in animals.

Over the years, this act has not only gained recognition but has been perfected that inter species cross breeding is now common. Some of them are:

BIG CATS HYBRID

LIGER: A liger is offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. The name LIGER was coined out from the first two letters of LIon and last three letters of tiGER making it LIGER.

The same orientation of nomenclature also goes for the TIGON, where in this case, the male parent is the tiger, while the female is the lion. Feline hybrid are not found naturally in the wild. This is because naturally, Lions and Tigers cannot meet in the wild to mate, instead they will hunt after one another. Hybrids of big cats are results of artificial insemination.

Though it’s often asked if ligers can reproduce. Some reports have claimed that some ligers have been born through the mating of either a lion or a tiger with a liger.  According to some recent reports, the birth of the first Liliger was in the United States and announced by Garold Wayne in Interactive Zoological Park sometime in November, 2013. The Liliger was born from a male lion and a female liger. Since the mating of lions and tigers is only done in captivity and not in the wild because the two cats don’t coexist in the same environment, this act is said to be wrong and illegal, as some of the cats suffer major complications during birth and sometimes, they even die. This is due to the fact that ligers are way bigger than both of their parents. Also, the tigress’s life is at risk and if she is having a liger at a young age, a C-section may be required and the tigress may even die in the process.  Hence, breeding ligers is tagged as a mean practice.

TIGON: The tigon's genome includes genetic components of both parents. Tigons can exhibit visible characteristics from both parents: they can have both spots from the mother (lions carry genes for spots—lion cubs are spotted and some adults retain faint markings) 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). 

LEOPON: A Leopon is the result of breeding a male leopard and a lionness. The head of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the bodies carries similarities to leopards. The most successful breeding programme was at the Koshien Hanshin Park in Nishinomiya City, Japan.

They have been bred in zoos in India, Japan, Germany and Italy (this latter was more correctly a Lipard - offspring of a lion and leopardess). Karl Hagenbeck, who has produced many different hybrids, recorded the birth of leopons at the Hamburg Tierpark in Germany, but none survived to maturity. A supposed leopard and lion hybrid was exhibited in Regent's Park Zoo, London. This was more leopard-like than lion-like apart from the rather square head and the large ears. Also, there is a report of a natural leopard/lioness mating where a lioness was expelled from her pride and formed an alliance with a male leopard