I have called this three-way hybrid big cat a ‘tribrid’ because that is what it allegedly is. A tribrid has three components (offspring of three different species) while a hybrid has two components, which is the offspring of two different species.
The picture comes from Sarah Hartwell’s website messybeast.com. She is the queen of the big cat hybrids. The big cat is said to be a leopard-lion-tiger hybrid or tribrid.
Correction: Sarah says this: “This is a lion-leopard hybrid. The confusion may be because the section header on my page for lion-tiger-leopard refers to the section below, not to the photo in the previous section. – Sarah H” My response: It’s my fault Sarah. Sorry.
It seems that there has always been a fascination with big cat hybrids. That’s why unscrupulous individuals such as Joe Exotic had them at his gargantuan private zoo (now defunct because Joe is serving a 22 year prison sentence).
On June 4th 1906 the New York Times reported on ‘Bi-Hybrids’. That must be a tribrid?! They said that the hybrids were at a Coney Island animal show owned and managed by a man whose name was Frank Bostock and that they are ‘mighty rare’.
Frank Bostock’s wild animal pavilion was one of the attractions at Dreamland. It opened in 1904.
These shows had to have a least one hybrid animal to get the attention of the paying public. The New York Times reported on the death of a leopard-lion-tiger hybrid or tribrid called ‘Tricolor’ belonging to Frank Bostock. There is no picture of the big cat but I would expect the animal to have been similar to the tribrid cat on this page.
Logic dictates that a tribrid is created by, for instance, a leopard mating with a lion to create a ‘leopon’ and the leopon mating with a tiger. That is one way it could be achieved it seems to me.
The appearance is very much of an animal which incorporates the elements from the three big cats mentioned. A lion’s head and the spots of a leopard. Although it looks more like what I would expect a leopard-lion hybrid to look like.
Hi Sarah, I am so pleased to hear from you. I hope you are well. Happy New Year by the way 😊. Thanks for the comment. I like being corrected by you 😎. Take care. I have to make a correction to the page.
This is a lion-leopard hybrid. The confusion may be because the section header on my page for lion-tiger-leopard refers to the section below, not to the photo in the previous section. – Sarah H