Not long ago the privately owned Tainan Zoo displayed a rare animal that it called a piao, which was a cross between a lion and a tiger. These unusual creatures, of which the zoo now has five, were the darlings of the local media for a while, and the attention they received attracted a great many visitors to the zoo.

In fact, the two species have been crossbred for many years overseas, where the offspring of a lion and tigress is called a "liger" and that of a tiger and a lioness a "tiglon."

According to Li Ling-ling, an assistant professor of zoology at National Taiwan University, the different physical structures and habits that animals of different species develop as a result of evolution make it difficult for them to mate together and reproduce. And even if they are artificially mated, the female may not give birth, or the resulting offspring may be infertile. The creatures that result when man tries to stand in for God are often sorry pieces of work indeed and short lived.

Yet some people point out that mankind long ago crossed the horse and the ass to produce a mule, which combines useful qualities of both. So what's wrong with crossing a lion and a tiger?

In fact, livestock breeders have often mated different kinds of animals, such as a water buffalo and a dairy cow, or a sheep and a goat, to produce improved breeds, "but crossbreeding has been limited to different breeds of the same species and to animals that have been domesticated and studied for a long time. It hasn't been practiced on wild animals that we know little about," says Sung Yung-i, a professor of animal husbandry at National Taiwan University. And the purpose has been in the greater interest of mankind and not to satisfy the curiosity of a few.

"Lions and tigers are wild animals. Cooping them up in cages is inhumane enough, without forcing them to couple with each other unnaturally. That's really going too far," says Ch'en Ch'ao-jen, a member of the Resources Conservation Division in the R.O.C. Council of Agriculture.

People today have the time and money to crave for things out of the ordinary. Zoos attract visitors with rare species and crossbreeds, and many people are proud of keeping odd or unusual pets. "That's what leads to illegal traffic in endangered species," says Wu Kuan-ts'ung, a colleague of Ch'en in the Resources Conservation Division. And because some people are willing to pay a high price for rare animals, other people go out into the wild to catch them, constantly reducing their numbers. At the same time, other people are thoughtlessly crossbreeding them, further reducing the hope of preserving them from extinction.

"Dragons mate with dragons, and phoenixes with phoenixes," goes a traditional Chinese saying, "while the son of a rat will always dig a hole." Nature has its own methods of propagation, selection, and evolution. If man tries to play at being God, what will be the consequences?

[Picture Caption]

My father's a lion, my mother's a tiger, and I'm a "liger." You figure it out.

Crossing a tiger with a mountain boar--a real possibility or a bizarre absurdity?

Crossing a tiger with a mountain boar--a real possibility or a bizarre absurdity?