The male cub was born to a female African lion on September 2 at a forest park in Fuzhou, capital of east China's Fujian Province. Its head looks like a lion while its body and tail are similar to a tiger.

The cub, which weighed 1.6 kilograms at birth, now weighs more than 2.5 kilograms. It is in good condition and lives on the milk of a female dog.

It would able to appear before visitors when it was 50 days old, according to Wang Meisong, deputy head of the forest park.

The tiger-lion's mother died soon after it gave birth to three tiger-lions. Their father refused to eat or drink for three days after. Two of the triplets later died, leaving their brother the only survivor.

Lions and tigers rarely interbreed and the pregnancy rate is very low, estimated at only one or two percent, after which their offspring have little chance of survival.

China's first tiger-lion cub was born at Hongshan Zoo in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, last August, but died just a week later.

(People's Daily October 3, 2002)