Fertility
The fertility of hybrid big cat females is well documented across a number of different hybrids. This is in accordance with Haldane's rule: in hybrids of animals whose sex is determined by sex chromosomes, if one sex is absent, rare or sterile, it is the heterogametic sex (the one with two different sex chromosomes e.g. X and Y).
According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C. A. W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile: in 1943, a fifteen-year-old hybrid between a lion and an 'Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The female cub, though of delicate health, was raised to adulthood.
In September 2012, the Russian Novosibirsk Zoo announced the birth of a “liliger”, which is the offspring of a liger mother and a lion father. The cub was named Kiara.
Read more about this topic: Liger
Famous quotes containing the word fertility:
“It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I will go root away
The noisome weeds which without profit suck
The soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Dancing with abandon, turning a tango into a fertility rite.”
—Marshall Pugh (b. 1925)