HYBRID BIG CATS #1

buscando si las panteras eran híbridos llegue a esta página...

Dr. Moreau anyone?


WHAT ARE HYBRID BIG CATS?

Zoos and menageries once bred exotic-looking hybrid big cats to attract the public just as hybrid small cats (Bengal, Chausie etc) are now bred as pets. The bigger and more ferocious looking, the better the public liked it. Hybrids are unlikely in the wild. Where big cat species have overlapping territories, they usually have different lifestyles to prevent them from coming into conflict - conflict being more likely than romance. The few claims of natural hybrids have not been properly substantiated.

To deliberately breed hybrids, the parent cats are raised together to overcome any natural enmity between their species. Some hybrids occur accidentally where different cat species were housed together for convenience; the keepers did not realise that the cats would - or even could - mate. It is claimed that lionesses must be sedated in order to mate with a leopard or tiger. The urge to mate can be so strong that a lioness in heat may willingly allow a smaller leopard to mate with her.

Unusually for hybrid animals, big cat hybrids are often fertile. Usually only the female hybrids are fertile. This is comparable to small cat hybrids e.g. Asian Leopard Cat x domestic cat where the F1 (first generation) males are either sterile or only fertile for a short time period.

Due to conservation efforts, deliberate hybridization is prohibited in most zoos. It still happens in private collections and there are plenty of individuals willing to experiment with breeding different cat species together. A few zoos still deliberately breed hybrids, for example in Amman Zoo, Jordan, Jassass, a 250 kilogram seven-year-old lion, and Warda, a 120 kg six year old tigress were introduced to each other on August 30, 2001. On this occasion, the tigress rebuffed the lion's overtures, but zoo keepers are hopeful that the pair will mate.

estas son algunas de los nombres e imagenes de los resultados:

LEOPON (LEPON) Leon, y leopardo


JAGLION (JAGUAR X LION HYBRID)

JAGULEP (JAGLEOP), LIJAGULEP (CONGOLESE SPOTTED LION) LEPJAG & LEGUAR

LIGER

y demás

por cierto las panteras no son hibridos...

PANTHER/LEOPARD HYBRIDS

This section is here to clear up some confusion and because I am frequently asked about "panther/leopard hybrids". The term "panther" is used both for puma (cougar), for (black) leopards and occasionally to mean a black jaguar. Originally the leopard and the panther were thought to be two different species and were differentiated by tail length. Black leopards are common in captivity.

The panthers once kept as pets in Britain (and possibly released into the wild) were black leopards not black pumas. By comparison, there are relatively few reports of black pumas. Since the black panther is simply a black form of leopard, these can breed with regular spotted leopards. The offspring are not hybrids. See Mutant Big Cats for more information on black leopards.


Mutant Big Cats??


HYBRID BIG CATS #1