What is a tigon?

Open classification: tiger, lion, hybrid animal

Directory? brief introduction

Tigon is in China.

Tigon's survival

Characteristics of tigon

Why didn't tigon inherit the advantages of his parents?

Why can't tigon reproduce?

Tigon's reproductive miracle

Why is tigon not as strong as a mule?

The value of tigon

The value of tigon

brief introduction

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Tigon, a descendant of a lion and a tiger, has a huge body and its English name is liger. Tigon is dignified, kind, cordial and harmonious.

Tiger: fierce and majestic, with electric eyes and strong physique, it is called the king of beasts. Tigers are extremely alert, moving smoothly and quietly like cats, and walking in the jungle is like sliding. Tigers are very good at running, jumping, swimming and climbing trees. Tigers often ambush their prey, quietly lurk in the bushes, and once the target approaches, they quickly jump out and pounce on the prey.

Lion: It's a cat with a big head, a wide face, a long nose and a black nose. Lions have short ears, round ears, stronger forelimbs than hind limbs, wider claws, a long tail and a long black hair at the end. Lions are social animals, and lions are basically hunted by females. Lions rarely hunt, but they are warriors who defend lions.

Tigon is in China.

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According to animal experts, the male tiger mates with the female lion and gives birth to offspring called tiger lion beast; The offspring of a tigress mating with a lion are called tiger lions.

It is understood that a domestic tiger named Lili lived for 20 years, was introduced from France and settled in Bifengxia Ecological Zoo in Ya 'an, Sichuan. Tigon's brothers and sisters Pingping and An 'an (born in 2005, with the longest survival time in China), two male, two female quadruplets (born in 2006) and Tigon quadruplets (born in 2007, and one of them died) were bred in Hainan Tropical Wildlife Park. Hainan Tropical Wildlife Park has also become the zoo that breeds the most tigers in the world, successfully breeding tigers 13. Liger mating experiment was conducted in Shanghai Zoo last year, but it failed. The tiger cub died soon after it was born.

Tigon's survival

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Tigers and lions are incompatible species. Lions are social animals and three generations can live together. Tigers live alone and are usually fed in separate cages, otherwise they will bite each other for food. They may play together, but the probability of falling in love and getting pregnant is extremely low. Even in the artificial breeding environment, the chances of tigers and lions getting pregnant are only 1% to 2%. Due to congenital deficiency and other reasons, the survival rate of cubs is only about one in five hundred thousand. According to the data, there are only about 20 tigon in the world.

Characteristics of tigon

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The offspring produced by the mating of a lion and a tiger are huge and similar in appearance to a lion, but have tiger stripes on their bodies. The tiger weighs about 300 kilograms, the lion weighs about 250 kilograms and the tiger weighs about 400 kilograms. Like tigers, they like swimming. In the natural environment, the habitats of lions and tigers rarely overlap, and tigers and lions are mainly the product of human influence or instigation. Tigers are bigger than lions or tigers. The reason is that the male lion and the female tiger will pass on the genetic genes that control growth to their offspring. Because tigon is not a descendant of a male tiger and a female lion, he lacks this gene, so his growth is out of control. Tigon will grow from birth until his body can't bear it.

Why didn't tigon inherit the advantages of his parents?

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Tigers and lions belong to cats. In nature, tigers and lions have their own natures and are not close to each other. But in the artificial breeding environment, tigers and lions can mate and get pregnant. The male lion mated with the female tiger and gave birth to the tiger lion beast, and the male tiger mated with the female lion and gave birth to the tiger lion beast. Judging from the current situation, tigon's life span is generally not too long, and most of them have low immunity. What caused tigon not to concentrate all the advantages of his parents like mules?

The first tiger was born in France. After four years of emotional cultivation, Harry, a male African lion, and Pearl Krabs, a female Siberian tiger, gave birth to their baby "Lili" in a very accidental opportunity in 198 1 year. Lili lived in this world for 20 years and died in September of 200 1 year. At the beginning of this century, several zoos in China began to try this method, but the effect was not satisfactory. Tigon and Tiger Lion, born one after another, have not lived long enough and have no reproductive ability.

Why can't tigon reproduce?

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Tigers and lions belong to different species. Why can different species occasionally mate, but the offspring produced by hybridization are often infertile?

Runlin Ma, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the reporter that all species in nature were produced in the process of biological evolution for millions or even tens of millions of years, and gradually passed down steadily. In this long historical process, some species became extinct because they did not adapt to the changing environment, and some new species came into being. Generally speaking, the biological world has formed a fixed species line, and these species are relatively stable in heredity. One of the greatest characteristics of species is reproductive isolation between species. The species we are talking about can become species because they are very stable. If a species can continue to cross with other species and produce fertile offspring, then it has been in the process of differentiation and variation. Theoretically, different species can't mate, because the genetic program, genome structure, especially the number of chromosomes that make up each species are different, which determines that species can't hybridize on the surface. So, why can horses and donkeys, lions and tigers mate to produce offspring?

Runlin Ma said that one of the key contents of species definition is reproductive isolation, but there are also some local successful examples among a few species, especially those closely related to the same family and genus. Just as horses and donkeys have mules, lions and tigers have tigers or tigers and lions. However, these local successful examples are not necessarily completely successful in the sense of biological evolution. If these hybrid offspring are sterilized, it is meaningless in species evolution.

In general, it is impossible to form a new species after the hybridization of natural animals, especially some higher animals, has formed. But it can't be said that they don't try to cross. This tendency exists in some species, but whether new species can finally appear depends on many accidental conditions.

The number of chromosomes in different species is often different. In the genetic material of higher animals, each somatic cell has two sets of chromosomes, one from the father and the other from the mother. When the number of parents' chromosomes is different, the chromosomes of sperm and eggs can't all be paired together, and even if the offspring can survive, it is difficult to produce fertile germ cells (sperm and eggs). Like horses and donkeys, the number of a chromosome is 64 and the number of a chromosome is 62. This difference in the number of chromosomes prevents the meiosis of their offspring, which makes these hybrid animals unable to produce fertile germ cells, so these animals no longer have reproductive ability. For some lower animals, such as arthropods and invertebrates, their own requirements for chromosome number are not very strict, and they may break through the original species and form new species.

Runlin Ma said that in nature, one way for new species to appear is through self-mutation, and the other is through hybridization. This breakthrough of primitive species is a basic form of life progress and species evolution. This tendency is common, but the result is not universal.

Tigon's reproductive miracle

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Tigon is generally considered infertile, but it is said that females can have children. It is rumored that in a zoo in India, a male lion and a female tiger have offspring, but the male can't. Are tigon and Tiger, Lion and Beast as infertile as mules? After blood test, it was found that the chromosome number of tigon was 19 pairs, with 38 chromosomes. According to experts' analysis, animals with diploid chromosomes will have better preservation stability, which is also the basis of family inheritance.

On June 22, 2007, 10, another amazing scene happened: a group of precious pictures taken by zoo staff: the male animal Pingping actually mated with Ann. Such a scene shocked everyone. Maybe another miracle will be born here in the near future.

Why is tigon not as strong as a mule?

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Why do mules concentrate the advantages of horses and donkeys, but tigers cannot concentrate the advantages of tigers and lions?

Runlin Ma believes that if the genetic distance or differentiation origin between different individuals in the same species is further due to geographical environment, their offspring will have more heterosis after mating. For example, the more different ethnic groups marry, the easier it is for children to absorb and show the advantages of their parents, and they are often stronger and more beautiful. This is because there is a trend within species, and genetic material needs a certain degree of heterozygosity to ensure its viability, that is, the stronger the heterozygosity, the stronger the viability.

When the concept of "heterosis" is extended to different species, their heterosis is also very obvious among the species that can hybridize, but it comes at a cost, that is, chromosomes can not all overlap. But the horse and the donkey happen to coincide, so the mule absorbs the advantages of both.

In fact, tigers and lions also have this trend. Tigon is relatively large and strong, but due to the mismatch of its genetic genes in chromosome number, they have serious genetic defects, resulting in short life span of some individuals and poor growth of some individuals.

Hybridization between different species, because of its distant origin, can often absorb the advantages of both sides if it can survive. However, due to different chromosome numbers, different species have congenital defects, which are reflected in horses and donkeys, and sterilization is inevitable. On the question of liger, some individuals are strong and some are weak. Whether you can survive or not is different. Now we have seen tigon who has survived for more than ten years, which shows that they can still survive.

Why is the success rate of mating between horses and donkeys high, and why is the success rate of mating between lions and tigers low?

Runlin Ma believed that horses and donkeys were domesticated animals. Their temperament is relatively docile, and human beings participate in the whole domestication process. In addition, they are all herbivores, and the feeding environment is not much different. Because they were domesticated, they were brought together for human reasons, and they were mated for human reasons, which made things impossible in nature happen. For a long time, horses and donkeys used to be the source of animal strength and power. When humans combine them and let them mate, the probability is naturally much greater, and the probability of success is therefore higher.

Tigers and lions are free-living animals in nature, each with its own territory and even different geographical distribution. Usually, they seldom meet. Today, what we see is often in zoos and domesticated conditions. They are close to the state of domesticating animals to some extent. Although their nature is wild and carnivorous, and the probability of successful mating is low, this possibility exists.

The value of tigon

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Many experts believe that tigon has no research value in science. What does Runlin Ma think of this view?

Many experts believe that tigon has no practical significance for scientific research. It can only show that these two species, tiger and lion, can produce offspring. They only have some commercial value. Runlin Ma thinks he can't agree with this view at all.

He said that if there is enough research funding, he himself has great research interest in this issue. From the perspective of molecular genetics, this interspecific hybrid offspring is an excellent material for comparative genomics and gene function research. At present, due to the limitation of funds, human beings know little about the genome, chromosomes and genetics of tigers and lions themselves. In fact, by studying the genomes of viable offspring produced by different species and their parents' genomes, we can find out: which genes were lost without participating in life recombination, and which lost genes were replaced or compensated by other genes to maintain life activities; Which genes are the key parts in the process of life recombination, and which individuals cannot survive, etc.

In fact, this work has very high research value, and the result of the research will be rare genetic materials. It not only helps us to understand how life evolves, but also helps us to understand the functions, functions and positions of various genes in life. Although this kind of pure scientific and theoretical research can not produce huge social benefits like the research on hybrid rice, it is of great significance to the development of science.

In addition to the significance of scientific research, things like tigon may help to satisfy the curiosity of some people in society and have certain ornamental value, or economic value. Under the condition of market economy, if there is social demand, there may be economic efforts to meet this demand, thus transforming this demand into value, including economic value. The fact that zoos all over the world are constantly cultivating tigon illustrates this point.