<P> According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C.A.W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile; however, in 1943, a fifteen - year - old hybrid between a lion and an' Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo . The female cub, though of delicate health, was raised to adulthood . </P> <P> In September 2012, the Russian Novosibirsk Zoo announced the birth of a "liliger", which is the offspring of a liger mother and a lion father . The cub was named Kiara . </P> <P> Ligers have a tiger - like striped pattern that is very faint upon a lionesque 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 colour may be correspondingly tawny, sandy or golden . In common with tigers, their underparts are pale . The actual pattern and colour depend on which subspecies the parents were and on how the genes interact in the offspring . </P> <P> 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 . As blue or Maltese tigers probably no longer exist, grey or blue ligers are exceedingly improbable . It is not impossible for a liger to be white, but it is very rare . </P>

Lion tiger hybrids don't live to reach maturity