Congolese Spotted Lion - Contemporary Comparison With Lion and Leopard Hybrids

Contemporary Comparison With Lion and Leopard Hybrids

To put the Congolese Spotted Lion into its proper context as a hybrid, lions had been hybridized with several big cat species, several of which are mentioned in the media accounts of the Congolese Spotted Lion, supporting the theory that the animal was a hybrid.

• with leopards to produce leopons and lipards - RI Pocock compared the appearance of the lijagulep to that of a leopon in The Field of 2nd Nov 1912.
• with tigers to produce ligers and tigons - The Times article of April 15, 1908 mentions these as part of its report on the Congolese Spotted Lion
• with jaguars to produce jaglions - described by H Hemmer in his analysis of the skin

A mounted specimen labelled as a jaguar-lion hybrid is displayed at the Rothschild Museum in Tring, England. The Paris specimen is the closest we have to an impression of how the Congolese Spotted Lion may have looked when alive. The age and pose of this specimen suggests it is the skin of the female lijagulep killed in Glasgow. Hemmer identified it as being either lion x jaguar or being lion x (leopard x jaguar).

Leopards have been hybridized with jaguars to produce jaguleps (also known as leguars or lepjags), one such was the dam of the lijagulep. As mentioned in the quote from The Times as evidence in favour of the cat being a hybrid, leopards had also been crossed with pumas (see pumapards).