This cat was a three way hybrid between a lion and a jaguar/leopard cross.
Check out the photos of these hybrids born at a zoo in Ontario.
And when you’re done reading about those read about the spotted lions, some of which might actually be naturally occurring hybrids between lions and leopards.
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I believe that the Carnivore Preservation Trust in North Carolina has also cross-bred to get some hybrids if no mate for a rare species can be found. Their plan is that DNA can later be separated to recreate the orignal endangered or perhaps by then extinct species. Do you know if the plan to separate hybrid DNA back into its original species is viable yet?
I see that these jaglions aren’t available for research. Does anyone know if they will send out samples of DNA if requested?
I have a neat old animal book with photos from the 1800’s and early 1900’s that show all manner of crossbred critters in zoos–Ligers and Tigons, a Leopard X Lion cross(it had a slight mane and was very squat and blocky) and even a Puma X Leopard cross–apparently all sterile. Also some Brown Bear X Polar Bear crosses….
For your enjoyment:
http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-cats.htm
How do they confirm if these hybrids are truly sterile.
They can’t breed from them.
Those crosses in Ontario are stunning looking. The husband is going to love them.
from the Bear-Creek Sanctuary page – EXCERPT –
>> In the case of the jaglions’ parents, Lola and Diablo,
every precaution was taken.
———————————-
A great many people didn’t think it was even possible for Lola to conceive, but nonetheless, she was separated from Diablo each time she came into estrus. <<
excuse me?
how about SPAYING the F and / or NEUTERING the M –
either one of which would have prevented the pregnancy.
::rolleyes::
*every precaution was taken* – balderdash.
sloppy husbandry, not *miracle babies* to quote another less than felicitious phrase. Tsk, IMO.
— terry
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
It’s actually well-known that lions, leopards, and jaguars can crossbreed.
I’m a bit suprised that they were surprised.
Of course, lions and tigers can crossbreed, but no proven live tiger/leopard or tiger/jaguar hybrid has been found.
It does bug me a bit that they don’t allow any research on these cats.
We could find out lots of things about both lions and jaguars from these hybrids.
Jahzara is the most amazing thing I’ve seen all week. I couldn’t care less that they allowed a hybrid mating… so what?
It IS really sad that no research will be done. Now THAT’s throwing away an opportunity.
I don’t doubt that the females (at least) in lion/jaguar or lion/leopard crosses are fertile. I wish that breeding experiments would be conducted, but to do that in a conscientious, humane way would be very expensive. There would have to be several unrelated breeding pairs to start with, so that the resulting offspring could then be bred to other hybrids to determine fertility and the inheritance of specific features. Ans all those cats would have to be housed humanely, given social stimuli appropriate to their species, and fed and cared for their whole lives (to determine whether hybrids have altered lifespans compared to the parent species).
I don’t have a problem with controlled breeding experiments; they can tell us a great deal about heredity, especially about heredity of behaviors (which can’t be quantified by studying DNA), and are valuable in determining the true relationships among related species. But I don’t like to see hybrid big cats bred just for the sake of commercial exploitation.
Hi all – I’m Dana, a volunteer at Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary and the Bear Creek webmaster.
Thanks for your interest in our jaglions. I assure you that Jahzara and Tsunami were a complete surprise. Not only did Lola have a “silent” heat that we missed, we had no idea she was pregnant. She had abandoned Jahzara when Mary (owner) discovered the cubs and Jazzy wasn’t breathing. (COLD.) As you can all see they are beautiful, perfect animals at 4 years old.
Oh, and we aren’t a zoo. We’re a sanctuary. We rescue confiscated and zoo surplus exotic animals and have had the odd surprise litter, including the jaglions. We are the forever home to all of our animals.
So to answer some questions: Why haven’t we sterilized the parents? General anesthesia is very dangerous on big cats. In order to sedate them you have to guess how much they weigh. That’s harder than it sounds, and if you guess wrong they can die. We aren’t willing to take that chance with Lola or with Diablo.
We know that our jaglions are sterile because we had them both neutered when they were 6 months old. We knew that they would be together for the rest of their lives and didn’t want any more suprises.
We don’t allow research to be done on Jahzara and Tsunami for several reasons. They would have to be sedated to get blood or tissue samples from them, and as I’ve already said that’s dangerous and we aren’t willing to take any chances with them. Also, we won’t stress them in that manner for any reason that isn’t medically necessary for their benefit. We also didn’t want people to think that we bred to get them on purpose so that we could exploit them for research or publicity purposes. We aren’t open to the general public, we are a quiet, healthy place for the animals to live out their lives and we want to keep it that way.
Please feel free to email me at dana@bearcreeksanctuary.com for answers to any other questions.
Dana Taramina
Webmaster
Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary
http://www.bearcreeksanctuary.com
I understand. However, there are less invasive ways of getting DNA samples. A lot of zoologists check scat that might have DNA samples. Shed hair also has DNA. These methods are being used to document Canada lynx in the wild:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3785147
Leopards, lions, and jaguars form a clade within Panthera. Jaguars split off from the ancestor of the lion and the leopard, and all three are closely related.
If lions and tigers can form hybrids (that are mostly sterile), then these three species can hybridize.
I am personally not aware of any requests for scat or hair samples for research purposes. (That’s not to say it hasn’t happened, just that I’m not aware of it.) When the jaglions were born it was decided after a lot of discussion with a lot of people that all requests for samples or photographs or from the entertainment industry would be refused. As I said, we don’t want people to think we bred Lola and Diablo purposely to get hybrid babies to exploit in any manner.
So, yes, lions and jaguars can hybridize. We didn’t set out to test that theory, but we did. I’d like to stress that we actively discourage breeding of exotic animals, especially large carnivores, for the pet and retail trades.
Dana