Can a liger breed with a leopard or a jaguar?

Question

I know ligers can breed with lions or tigers, to make ti-ligers, li-ligers etc, but not breed with their own kind. I also know that lions can breed with leopards and jaguars as it has been done. So surely a liger can breed with a leopard or a jaguar? That would be so amazing, it would be, say if it was a leopard the liger re-produced with, 50% leopard, 20% lion, 20% tiger! How great would that be? Surely it's possible as they are all from the same genus.

Answer 1

Actually, most ligers (offspring of a male lion and female tiger) and tigons (offspring of a male tiger and female lion) are sterile due to the parents having different numbers of chromosomes. Males are always sterile, but occasionally a female will be fertile, and can be bred back to one of the parent species, producing:

Liger + lion = li-liger

Liger + tiger = ti-liger

Tigon + tiger = ti-tigon

Tigon + lion = li-tigon

Since they are in the same genus as leopards and jaguars, it is possible that a fertile liger or tigon female could be bred with a male leopard or jaguar, but I do not know of a single case of this happening, or why anyone would want to do such a thing in the first place. It is bad enough that valuable resources, which could be used to breed endangered species, are being taken up with the breeding of lion-tiger hybrids simply for the amusement of human beings - to then start crossing those hybrids with other cats would be wasteful and pointless.

Answer 2

i always thought ligers could not reproduce due to being i think its called a hybrid..maybe im wrong

oh really? haha i never knew that, guess you learn something every day. but that would be pretty interesting to see !! =]

Answer 3

I see no logical reason for doing any of this.  Man is s******g with nature "again", and just can't leave it alone.