Lion-tiger hybrid proving a hit as keepers fight to ensure survival

His name is fit for a king, and he’s being treated like one: Tsar the liger cub, born from an extremely rare liontiger romance, is proving a hit for a traveling Russian zoo.

Stretched out in the zoo director’s van, the stripy Tsar — whose name is a throwback to the Russian emperors of centuries past — impatiently awaits his milk bottle.

“We don’t leave him in a cage — it’s too cold outside,” said zoo chief Erik Airapetyan. “We keep him here with us — he even sleeps in our bed.”

With the tawny fur of a lion cub but covered in black stripes, Tsar was born on November 11 while the zoo was on tour in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don region.

Airapetyan and colleagues are feeding him with goat’s milk, and so far, he drinks about a liter (two pints) a day.

His mother Princess, the zoo’s only tigress, had a difficult birth and has been unable to suckle him. She has given birth to a total of three liger cubs, but only Tsar has survived, according to Airapetyan.

“Hybrids like this are extremely rare — and generally they are weaker than lion cubs or ordinary young tigers,” said Dmitry Miloserdov, a researcher at Moscow’s Darwin Museum of Natural History, adding that male ligers are born sterile.

We don’t leave him in a cage ... We keep him here with us — he even sleeps in our bed.” Erik Airapetyan, zoo chief

Against the odds

Mindful that Tsar’s survival is against the odds, the zoo is catering to his every whim: he has an unlimited milk supply, sleeps 16 hours a day, and plays whenever he wants.

Neither Princess or Tsar’s father, Caesar the lion, have access to the cub for the moment.

At two and a half months old and weighing five kilograms, he is “still too small

the number of ligers in the world, as the lion-tiger hybrids can only be born in capitivity.

and fragile” to meet his parents, said Airapetyan.

Princess and Caesar have occupied neighboring cages for years and “are used to one another”, according to the zoo director.