What Happens When Male Jaguar Mate with Female Lion

When a male jaguar mate with a female lion or a lioness, the offspring is referred to as a Jaglion.
Jaglion is a combination of the parent animals’ names, Jaguar and Lion. There are no natural names for the offspring.

This offspring is a hybrid species of the wild cats, and because the two animals, jaguar, and lion, belong to the same genus, their genes are broadly similar. Also, it is essential to state that while it is not surprising that the two animals can mate, the possibility of that happening is rare. It is so rare that there has not been a record of that happening before this century. Even in this century, it happened only once, as far back as 2006.

It happened in the Bear Creek Sanctuary in Ontario, Canada. This centre is a charity that treats and rehabilitates injured, abused, and endangered wild animals. The centre opens its door to both local and exotic animals, and it was in this spirit that two wild cats, a lioness, later named Lola, and a male jaguar, later named Diablo, found their way into the centre. Both animals came into the sanctuary within one week and became inseparable. They lived, fed, and grew together, as the efforts of their handlers to separate them proved abortive. The two animals would throw tantrums and suffer anxiety and depression at any effort to separate them. There were reports that Lola refused to eat when separated from Diablo.

While the handlers allowed them to live together, they separated them temporarily anytime Lola went into heat. However, despite this precaution, Lola got pregnant and birthed two healthy jaglion cubs in April 2006. The cubs were named Tsunami (male) and Jazhara (female). While Tsunami adopts the lioness’s fairer coat, he comes with spots, while Jazhara takes after the jaguar with its melanistic and predominantly black coat.
Apart from this incidence, there has not been any other record of this type of mating again. In fact, that of Bear Creek Sanctuary was a mistake, and a surprise as the centre doesn’t breed animals. Thus, there is not enough room for experts to study which of the parent animals the jaglion would look like if a male jaguar did mate with a lioness.

It all boils down to luck when determining which parent’s gene the jaglion will take. There is no telling which traits will come out dominant. However, other crossbreeding arrangements show that spots are a dominant gene in many wild cats. This means that a jaguar with spots will most likely pass the characteristics down to its offspring, so you can expect most jaglions to have spots. This also means that if the jaguar is a melanistic type with a black coat, the same coat pattern and color can be expected on the jaglion.
However, a trait you can expect the jaglion to pick from its mother is the tuft of hair on the tail. Both Jazhara and Tsunami have this. Also, a male jaglion will most likely not grow a mane. With the size, you can expect anything between 200 and 230 lb. this is because the average lioness measures 260lb in size, while the biggest jaguars measure around 200lb. Thus, it is expected that the jaglion will be an average of this. With stature, it is even more difficult to guess. This is because both parent animals are sexually dimorphic, meaning that both male and female animals of both species have different sizes and stature. That is about all anyone can assume or guess about the physical appearance of the jaglion.

All of the above information is courtesy of TrendingEra