Russian zoo mated a lion with a tiger, resulting in a rare baby liger

Transcription

1 Russian zoo mated a lion with a tiger, resulting in a rare baby liger By Agence France-Presse, adapted by Newsela staff on Word Count 625 A picture taken on January 26, 2017, shows traveling zoo director Erik Airapetyan feeding milk to a 2-1/2-month-old liger cub, Tsar, a crossbreed between a lion and a tigress, in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Russia. Photo: Yuri Maltsev/AFP/Getty Images His name is fit for a king, and he's being treated like one: Tsar the liger cub, born from an extremely rare lion-tiger romance, is proving a hit for a traveling Russian zoo. Stretched out in the zoo director's van, the stripy Tsar named from the Russian word for emperor 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." Tsar, born on November 11 while the zoo was on tour in southern Russia, has the tawny fur of a lion cub, but is instead covered in black stripes. Airapetyan and his team are feeding Tsar with goat's milk, and so far, he drinks about a liter (two pints) a day. This article is available at 5 reading levels at 1

2 Tsar Is The Only Surviving Cub From His Mother 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," explained Dmitry Miloserdov, a researcher at Moscow's Darwin Museum of natural history. Generally, "they are weaker than lion cubs or ordinary young tigers," he continued. "But if you take good care of them, they can grow up and live a long time," he told a French news outlet adding, however, that male ligers are born sterile and cannot reproduce. 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. He's A Little Treasure "We're all taking care of him we're very proud of our little treasure. He's unique, our stripy lion," Airapetyan smiled. Neither Princess or Tsar's father, Caesar the lion, have access to the cub for the moment. At 2 1/2 months old and weighing five kilograms (11 pounds), he is "still too small 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. Every time she is ready to have babies, the zoo faces a tricky problem it can offer Caesar as a mate or deal with Princess' anger. Lion Plus Tiger Equals Liger "So we dared to half-open the dividing wall between the cages," Airapetyan recalled. Once Airapetyan saw everything was going well, his team took the risk of leaving the cats faceto-face. When it became clear Princess was pregnant, "everyone was so happy," he said. "It's so rare, a liger! Right now there are only about 20 in the world," he added, grinning from ear to ear. Ligers can only be born in captivity, Miloserdov noted, not least because almost all wild lions live in sub-saharan Africa, and tigers in the jungles of Asia. The same goes for tigons cubs that are born to a lioness and a male tiger. This article is available at 5 reading levels at 2

3 "They only cross over in India but even there, their cycles of being in heat are very different," Miloserdov said. The Size Of A House Cat (For Now) For now, Tsar is only the size of a large house cat and "he often sleeps in my arms," said Airapetyan. "But when our little king grows up, he will surely be heavier than his parents," he predicted. Ligers can weigh more than 400 kilograms (880 pounds), compared to a maximum weight of about 300 kg for a tiger and 250 kg for a lion. Hercules the liger lives at a wildlife reserve in the United States and is the world's largest living cat at 10 feet 11 inches long, according to the Guinness World Records book. This article is available at 5 reading levels at 3

4 Quiz 1 Which answer choice from the article expresses two ideas that would be MOST important to include in a summary of the article? Tsar, born on November 11 while the zoo was on tour in southern Russia, has the tawny fur of a lion cub, but is instead covered in black stripes. Every time she is ready to have babies, the zoo faces a tricky problem it can offer Caesar as a mate or deal with Princess' anger. His name is fit for a king, and he's being treated like one: Tsar the liger cub, born from an extremely rare lion-tiger romance, is proving a hit for a traveling Russian zoo. Hercules the liger lives at a wildlife reserve in the United States and is the world's largest living cat at 10 feet 11 inches long, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. 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. Ligers can only be born in captivity, Miloserdov noted, not least because almost all wild lions live in sub-saharan Africa, and tigers in the jungles of Asia. His mother, Princess, the zoo's only tigress, had a difficult birth and has been unable to suckle him. "They only cross over in India but even there, their cycles of being in heat are very different," Miloserdov said. 2 The central idea of the article is developed by: explaining that liger cubs are rare and weak, so the zoo is taking measures to ensure the survival of Tsar explaining that ligers can only be born in captivity, and their mothers typically have difficult births highlighting how the physical characteristics of a liger are different from those of its parents or tigons highlighting how Tsar was born in Russia, but most ligers are born in wildlife reserves in Asia, Africa or the United States 3 How does the article develop the idea that lion-tiger romances are rare? by highlighting that tigons are born to wild lionesses and male tigers by highlighting that experts try to limit how much tigers mate with lions by highlighting that Tsar's parents did not interact frequently at the zoo by highlighting that most wild lions and tigers live on separate continents This article is available at 5 reading levels at 4

5 4 Based on the article, which of the following statements BEST represents Airapetyan's approach toward mating Tsar's parents? He carefully monitored them before allowing them to mate. He encouraged them to mate quickly to avoid Princess' anger. He did not hesitate to introduce and mate them. He allowed them to mate every time Princess was ready for babies. This article is available at 5 reading levels at 5