Jaglions - Half Jaguar, Half Lion

snowleopard

snowleopard

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There is a non-profit, volunteer establishment called Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary an hour north of Toronto, Canada. I'd never heard of the place until today, but they have a small collection of animals. They have almost 100 photos of two jaglions (half jaguar, half lion) on their website, as well as many other shots of their captive wildlife. Are there other jaglions in the world?

Bear Creek Sanctuary - Jaglions


Interesting notice for visitors (when they used to be open to the public)

NOTICE TO GUESTS:

Bear Creek Sanctuary is private property. It is not a forum for protest. The proprietors reserve the right to refuse entry to any person and, in particular, to any member or affiliate of WSPA, PETA, Zoo Check and other similar animal rights organizations. Members or affiliates of those organizations found on these premises without express written permission from Bear Creek Sanctuary will be charged with
trespassing pursuant to the Trespass to Property Act of Ontario.
 
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I know this was an accident, but they don't breed a lot of hybrids like this do they?
I think they're stunning lol
 
i have only read old anecdotal accounts of jaguar/lion hybrids. indeed jaguar/anything hybrids seem particularly rare, i suppose since few people keep jaguars.

its interesting to note that, since lions are spotted as cubs (i assume lions are particularly closely related to leopards/jaguars in general) both cats are almost as well spotted as a regular jaguar. the black/tan individual is particularly striking.

if i was directing a 10,000 AD type film i would definitely give that cat a role...

next time i suggest they desex...
 
patrick said:
if i was directing a 10,000 AD type film i would definitely give that cat a role...
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I'm sure Mauricio Anton, illustrator of The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives, would be very interested in having a look at these jaglions. They resemble some of the prehistoric cats in his work...

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Anton's drawings are stunning.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Big-Cats-Their-Fossil-Relatives/dp/0231102291"]Amazon.com: The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives: Mauricio Anton,Alan Turner,F. Clark. Howell: Books[/ame]
 
there's more here:

Mauricio Antón Paleontology Prehistoric Anthropology Anthropologist Illustrator Illustrations Design Designer Infógrafo Infografías Museums Modeled 3D

its very good - but his work as a hint of flatness to it i'm not so fond of - some more than others - and some scenes look lumped together with little relationship between its subjects. there a formality to some of the poses i think that puts me off a bit...but teh cats look quite good - i'll be sure to look up some of those titles.

on a side note i see he's tackled a bit of early hominid depictions.

only one artist has ever put believability in a non modern hominid to me and nobody has ever come close to him... this john gurche paints for national geographic

John Gurche

(why is it all artists have really lame 16-bit colour websites!)
 
patrick said:
his work as a hint of flatness to it i'm not so fond of - some more than others - and some scenes look lumped together with little relationship between its subjects. there a formality to some of the poses i think that puts me off a bit...(why is it all artists have really lame 16-bit colour websites!)
Click to expand...

Ah I see you are quite the seasoned critic.
 
ashley-h said:
I know this was an accident, but they don't breed a lot of hybrids like this do they?
I think they're stunning lol
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Yeah, I remember these, if I remember correctly it was an accident based on keeper inexperience...
 
@Sun Wukong: the website that you posted was quite informative. I particularly liked the photos of the puma/ocelot and lion/leopard hybrids.
 
I haven't come across this cross before. This pair are very striking, more so as the female is melanistic so the Jaguar(male) parent is either black or he carries the melanistic gene. Its also interesting that as they say, the male looks facially more lion -like, whereas the female looks more Jaguar -like, though that may be due to her colour. I hope these two won't be allowed to breed together just in case they turned out to be fertile...

There used to be a 'Leopon' (Leopard x Lion) in a zoo somewhere in Japan and I believe it might actually have had one parent which was already itself a 'hybrid' between these two.

Many years ago I saw an unusually partial-melanistic Jaguar in a zoo in Europe- possibly Hanover? It was spotted but with a black 'mantle' over the back and hind quarters. However, it was still a 'pure' Jaguar.
 
@snowleopard: You're welcome. Back in the days of Carl Hagenbeck, hybridisation among the big cats & bears, but also other species (f.e. pheasants, deer, wild bovidae etc.) was more or less selectively aspired. Nowadays, hybrids in zoos are most likely mere "accidents", like in the case of these jaglions-even though I suspect that in some cases, especially in regard to huge ligers used for the show business, crossbreeding big cats is deliberately aimed for.
 
Talk about Walking With Prehistoric Beasts. Just look at the size of this guy:

 
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Ligers & Tigons.

Are ligers & Tigons deliberately produced in the USA nowadays, in a similar way to the White Tigers? How many approximately would you say were in the USA?

They're pretty rare in other countries- Canberra in Australia has one or two. There have been a few exhibited in the UK in the past but to my knowledge none at all nowadays. They were sufficiently rare here to arouse quite an interest. I don't know of any in Europe currently either.
 
Pertinax said:
Are ligers & Tigons deliberately produced in the USA nowadays, in a similar way to the White Tigers? How many approximately would you say were in the USA?
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Here's a place in South Carolina that I've never seen, but seems a bit dubious. They say they didn't plan to have ligers, but they had lions and tigers living together and it just happened. Well, if they're living together, what do you expect? They also claim, on the link provided, that ligers may have naturally occured in Singapore long ago!!! (Does anyone buy this?). I mean, it is theoretically possible, especially if an area of asia had tiger and lion numbers so reduced by people that they had to mate with each other. Just seems very fishy. On the other hand, there is a theory that this is exactly how the red wolf came to exist here in the states - that when eastern gray wolves were reduced to very low numbers they started mating with coyotes which produced what we now call the red wolf. Anyway, here's that link: TIGERS | The Institute of the Greatly Endangered and Rare Species | Animal Actors | Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
 
There is a mounted specimen, labelled lion x jaguar hybrid, at the Zoological Museum, Tring.

In 1908, a triple hybrid lion x (leopard x jaguar) was exhibited at London Zoo; I believe that this animal was born in Chicago, but have no details. Do any American ‘zoo chatters’ have further information?

It has been suggested that the Tring specimen is actually this triple hybrid rather than a lion x jaguar cross as labelled.
 
Jaglions in Canada

I know this is an old thread but I just found it. My name is Dana and I'm the webmaster for the Bear Creek Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary. I've been a volunteer for 6 years and was there when the jaglions were born. I'd be happy to answer any questions any of you have about them (Jahzara and Tsunami) or the sanctuary itself, if anyone is still interested. Let me know, the kids are 4 now and are just perfect.

Bear Creek Sanctuary - Jaglions
 
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