Tigon

A tigon is the zoo-bred hybrid of a male tiger and a female lion. Tigons do not occur as commonly as the inverse hybrid, where a male lion and a female tiger have offspring called ligers. Tigons presumably do not occur naturally in the wild, as the lion and tiger have very different behaviors and habitats.

Tigons can exhibit characteristics of both parents: they can have both spots from the mother and stripes from the father. Any mane that a male tigon may have will appear shorter and less noticeable than a lion's mane. Tigons grow smaller than lions or tigers, due to the fact that they inherit growth-inhibitory genes from both parents; they often weigh around 150 kilograms, or 350 lbs. They appear "housecat-like".

Most tigons are sterile, but a tigon named Noelle in the Shambala Reserve mated with a tiger to produce a "ti-tigon".

Some Broadcom ethernet NICs use the code-name "tigon".

See also

• Liger
• List of portmanteaus