Mythical majestic black lion is a stunner,
but it is manipulating our minds via the power of Photoshop as the
designer showed the original lion image
from which it was created. Yet there are some real lions and hybrid
combinations that seem like they might not be real such as Ligers,
Tigons, Jaglion, Leopons, Lil-ligers. . . . even though these lions do
exist. Photo #1 by © PAulie-SVK (Paulie Design)
Birth of an urban legend, simply because the
guy who started always wanted to see a black lion he told us. It was
such a viral sensation that Snopes
stepped in to call a foul on the play and the rumor was false. For
people who didn’t know where the image started, this black lion is
really a digitally manipulated version of this white lion. Photo #2 by © PAulie-SVK (Paulie Design)
Yes, another black lion except this one is REAL
— and really coated in black mud. “Amazing black lion in Africa.” The
photographer explained, “They were feeding in a dry dam and got them
selves covered in black mud. It was a sighting of a life time. When we
returned from our sun downers and saw these lions we did not really know
what they were , I think it was just the surprise of seeing a lion
completely covered in mud. It just shows that lions will do anything for
some food. The one thing that stood out was their golden eyes.” Photo #3 by © Grant Marcus
Photographer Grant Marcus
captured this black lion photo while in Madikwe, Africa. As he wrote,
“Seeing lions covered in mud like they were are quite a rare sight.” Photo #4 by © Grant Marcus
The photographer’s website, Photo Africa, is currently not working, but this is his black lion, or a lion coated in so much mud that it appears black. Photo #5 by © Gerry Van Der Walt
This is a liger: Liger Liger reports,
“Ligers are extremely social animals. They are happy and content living
with both lions and tigers. They also display genuine affection for
their human handler’s and trainers. Contrary to popular belief, ligers
are not a ‘man-made’ creation. They are the result of a male lion and a
female tiger that have been raised together and decide they like each
other enough to breed.” Like lions and tigers in captivity, ligers
“live into their late teens and early twenties.” Another myth is that
ligers are unhealthy, but “ligers have Hybrid Vigor. They are bigger,
stronger and tend to be healthier than both parents.” Photo #6 by Jassen (jmwests)
“Hercules the liger is the biggest (non-obese) cat on earth at over 1,100 lbs.” Liger-Liger says
of Hercules, “I am the heaviest of the liger brothers. I love to
travel. I spend my winters in Miami, hanging out with my brother Vulcan.
My spring and summer is spent in South Carolina, with a big group of
friends! I educate people on the Wild Encounter Tour. In the fall I
drive to New England. Fall is my favorite season. I star in a show in
Carver, MA, called the Tale of the Tiger at the King Richard’s Faire. My
best friend is a golden tabby tiger names Brahmin, but I hang out with
many other cats as well. I was featured in the Guinness Book of World
Records as the world’s largest big cat.” Hercules and his brother Sinbad
weigh over 410 kg (904 lb). Photo #7 by Justin Morgan & #8 by jassen
Male liger. Photo #9 & #10 & #11 by Documenting Reality
Top: Tiger, Liger, Lion. Bottom: liger cub, liger giant. Wikipedia states,
“Ligers have a tiger-like striping pattern that is very faint and a
lion-like tawny background. In addition they may inherit rosettes from
the lion parent (lion cubs are rosetted and some adults retain faint
markings). These markings may be black, dark brown or sandy. The
background color may be correspondingly tawny, sandy or golden. In
common with tigers, their underparts are pale. The actual pattern and
color depends on which subspecies the parents were and on how the genes
interact in the offspring. White tigers have been crossed with lions to
produce ‘white’ (actually pale golden) ligers. In theory, white tigers
could be crossed with white lions to produce white, very pale or even
stripeless ligers. There are no black ligers. Very few melanistic tigers
have ever been recorded, most being due to excessive markings
(pseudo-melanism or abundism) rather than true melanism; no reports of
black lions have ever been substantiated.” Photo #12 & #13 & #14 by © LigerLiger
Tigons (or tiglons) = a daddy tiger and a mommy lion. Tiglon
“has parents with the same genus but of different species. The tiglon
is not currently as common as the converse hybrid, the liger. Tiglons
can exhibit observable characteristics of both parents: [6] they can
have both spots from the mother (lions carry genes for spots—lion cubs
are spotted and some adults retain faint markings) and stripes from the
father. Any mane that a male tiglon may have will appear shorter and
less noticeable than a lion’s mane and is closer in type to the ruff of a
male tiger. It is a common misconception that tiglons are smaller than
lions or tigers. They do not exceed the size of their parent species
because they inherit growth-inhibitory genes from the lioness mother,
but they do not exhibit any kind of dwarfism or miniaturization; they
often weigh around 180 kilograms (400 lb).” Photo #15 by Bentley Smith
Tiglons, according to Wikipedia:
“At the Alipore Zoo in India, a female tiglon named Rudhrani, born in
1971, was successfully mated to an Asiatic Lion named Debabrata. The
rare, second generation hybrid was called a litigon. Rudhrani produced
seven litigons in her lifetime. Some of these reached impressive sizes—a
litigon named Cubanacan (died 1991) weighed at least 363 kilograms (800
lb), stood 1.32 meters (4.3 ft) at the shoulder, and was 3.5 metres (11
ft) in total length. Reports also exist of the similar titigon,
resulting from the cross between a female tiglon and a male tiger.
Titigons resemble golden tigers but with less contrast in their
markings. A female tiglon born in 1978, named Noelle, shared an
enclosure in the Shambala Preserve with a male Siberian Tiger called
Anton, due to the keepers’ belief that she was sterile. In 1983 Noelle
produced a titigon named Nathaniel. As Nathaniel was three-quarters
tiger, he had darker stripes than Noelle and vocalized more like a
tiger, rather than with the mix of sounds used by his mother. Being only
about quarter-lion, Nathaniel did not grow a mane. Nathaniel died of
cancer at the age of eight or nine years. Noelle also developed cancer
and died soon after.” Photo #16 by Jerry Tillery
Leopon. Leopons are hybrids
“resulting from the crossing of a male leopard with a lioness. The head
of the animal is similar to that of a lion while the rest of the body
carries similarities to leopards. These hybrids are produced in
captivity and are unlikely to occur in the wild.” Photo #17 by Messy Beast & #18 by Macro Evolution & #19 by Koshien Hanshin Park & #20 by Koshien Hanshin Park
This is a jaglion. As the hybrid name infers,
a jaglion is a a jaguar/lion cross. “The black jaglion is a female
called Jahzara. She was born at the Bear Creek Sanctuary in Ontario,
Canada. Her father was a Jaguar named Diablo, and her mother a Lioness
named Lola. Jahzara’s black coloration is due to a dominant black gene
that was passed to her from her father (Diablo is a Black Jaguar). The
mutation is known as melanistic.” Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary
is home to the only (known) living Jaglions: “You can see Jazhara and
Tsunami as cubs and together when older. The light-colored one is
Tsunami. Conversely, a Liguar
is “when the fertile offspring of a male lion and female jaguar mates
with a leopard, the resulting offspring is referred to as a leoliguar.” Photo #21 by ©BearCreekSanctuary & #22 by ©bearcreeksanctuary.com/Tara Frost & #23 & #24 by © Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary
Baby liliger: Russian zoo released photos of first “liliger” named Kiara. Wikipedia wrote,
“The liliger is a hybrid cross between a male lion (Panthera leo) and a
ligress (Panthera leo × Panthera tigris). The first hybrid was born at
the Novosibirsk Zoo. The first hybrid, a female liliger named Kiara, was
born at the Novosibirsk Zoo in Russia, in September 2012. Kiara was
born to 8-year-old female liger Zita and male African lion Samson. Male
tiglons and ligers are sterile, but female hybrids can produce cubs.” Photo #25 by Voices from Russia
Liliger, “a rare hybrid
of a lion and a liger, itself the offspring of a lion and a tiger, has
been born at the Novosibirsk zoo. “Meet baby cub, Kiara, thought to be
the world’s first liliger. The cute kitty,
whose mom, Zita, is a liger (lion crossed with a tiger) and dad, Sam,
is an African lion, was born at the Novosibirsk Zoo in Siberia. To add
to the confusion, Kiara is reportedly being raised by the zoo’s ordinary
domestic cat since her liger mother wasn’t able to provide enough milk
to feed the hungry, growing baby cub. ‘This cub has just started growing
and developing, her character has not even formed yet. But I’m
confident she will be a calm, confident, strong animal,’ Roza Solovyova,
the head of the zoo’s cat section, told Reuters.” Photo #26 by Free Republic & #27 by The Frisky & #28 by The Times UK & #29 by Voices from Russia
Lion cubs have no fear of their roaring father. Adult lions are said to weigh between 150–250 kg (330–550 lb) for males and 120–182 kg (264–400 lb) for females. Photo #30 by Valerie (ucumari)
Mating ritual of lions in captivity. Of the photo on the right, the photographer titled it “I feel a headache coming on!” Photo #31 by Ltshears & #32 by Valerie (ucumari)
Lion pair. “Lions
have been known to breed with tigers (most often the Siberian and
Bengal subspecies) to create hybrids called ligers and tiglons (or
tigons). They also have been crossed with leopards to produce leopons,
and jaguars to produce jaglions. The marozi is reputedly a spotted lion
or a naturally occurring leopon, while the Congolese spotted lion is a
complex lion-jaguar-leopard hybrid called a lijagulep. Such hybrids were
once commonly bred in zoos, but this is now discouraged due to the
emphasis on conserving species and subspecies. Hybrids are still bred in
private menageries and in zoos in China.” Photo #33 by Robek
Not a black lion, but definitely darker than
most. This is an Indian Lion as was seen in the Nehru Zoological Park,
Hyderabad, India. It is also known as an Asiatic lion. Photo #34 by Rameshng
Not a black lion, but a lion in black and
white with the eyes still in color. The photographer wrote, “In the
morning there were lots of excitement in the camp. A pride of nine lions
entered the camp at night and decided not to leave. They were most
concentrated around unit 3. Person residing in 3 (mine was 11) was taken
out from there by a game vehicle. On my request I was taken to the back
deck of that unit, so that I could take some pictures. The lions (6
adults and 3 cubs) were 10-15 ft away and there was practically nothing
between us (myself and two camp personnel) and the lions. Seeing me
getting low to take a shot this fella got interested and walked right
towards me. The camp people felt uncomfortable and we quickly moved to
safety.” Photo #35 by Aftab Uzzaman
Gorgeous white lion. Wikipedia states,
“The white lion is not a distinct subspecies, but a special morph with a
genetic condition, leucism, that causes paler colouration akin to that
of the white tiger; the condition is similar to melanism, which causes
black panthers. They are not albinos, having normal pigmentation in the
eyes and skin. White Transvaal lion (Panthera leo krugeri) individuals
occasionally have been encountered in and around Kruger National Park
and the adjacent Timbavati Private Game Reserve in eastern South Africa,
but are more commonly found in captivity, where breeders deliberately
select them. The unusual cream colour of their coats is due to a
recessive gene. Reportedly, they have been bred in camps in South Africa
for use as trophies to be killed during canned hunts.” Photo #36 by Patrick Bouquet
White Lioness. Photo #37 by Art G.
A mischievous little White Lion Cub with a dab of dried mud on its nose. Photo #38 by Martin Heigan & #39 by Martin Heigan
“Zumba, the white lion, and Timba, his
lioness ‘grilfriend,’ cuddling, both young lions were resting together,
like a loving couple. And that was only 5 days after they were
introduced to each other, that was so lovely to watch! :D” Photo #40 by Tambako the Jaguar
Baby white lion cubs at Shamwari Reserve, Africa, a life in the wild. Wikipedia states
that white lions “vary from blonde through near-white. This coloration,
however, does not appear to disadvantage their survival.” Photo #41 by Lwp Kommunikáció
White lion Zumba and and lioness Timba
playing. The photographer explained, “That was so cute to see them like
that: Zumba and his “girlfriend” Timba. She was annoying him a bit with
(love-?)bites but that wasn’t meant to be mean!” Photo #42 by Tambako the Jaguar
Young white lions saying “Purrrr… I think I like you.” Photo #43 by Valerie (ucumari)
Letsatsi, the White lion. (Son of Temba). Letsatsi means ‘day’ or ‘sun.’ Photo #44 by Arno Meintjes
Female (left) and male (right) ligers at Everland amusement park, South Korea. According to Wikipedia,
“Ligers enjoy swimming, which is a characteristic of tigers, and are
very sociable like lions. Ligers exist only in captivity because the
habitats of the parental species do not overlap in the wild.” Photo #45 by Hkandy
Molly the liger cub. Photo #46 by Liontamer (FuzzyButt)
Big Cat Show. Meet the ligers explains
there are four ligers in the show: Hercules is the biggest. Zeus is the
“most easy going and well mannered of the group.” Sinbad is the
“tallest of all my brothers, and the most spoiled.” Vulcan is the “most
mischievous of the 4-liger brothers.” Photo #47 by Chris (TechSavi)
Liger drinking milk from a bottle. Photo #48 by Jassen
