Congolese spotted lion

A Congolese spotted lion, also known by the portmanteau lijagulep, is the hybrid of a male lion and female jaguar-leopard hybrid (a jagulep or lepjag). Several lijaguleps have been bred, but only one appears to have been exhibited as a Congolese spotted lion. It was most likely given that name by a showman because the public were more interested in exotic captured animals than in captive-bred hybrids.
The Times (April 15, 1908) pg. 6:
In The Field No 2887, April 25, 1908, the editor wrote:
The possibility was considered that the Congolese spotted lion may have been part cheetah or a new species of leopard. In The Field No 2887, April 25, 1908, Henry Scherren wrote:
The Times (Monday May 4, 1908) pg. 12:
Three jaguar/leopardess hybrids were bred in Chicago, United States, possibly at Lincoln Park Zoo. These were sold to a traveling menagerie and one was displayed at London Zoo and White City (in London). The female jaguleps had refused to mate with a leopard, but one female was mated to a lion and produced several litters. One of the offspring was exhibited in London in 1908 and was claimed to be a type of lion. It was the size of a lioness and had brown rosettes or spots. It is not noted whether the other lijagulep cubs survived to adulthood.
In The Field No 2889, May 9, 1908, R I Pocock wrote:
The male lijagulep hybrid was said to have been killed by a lion while on display in Glasgow. In his comparison of a leopon with a lijagulep, R I Pocock wrote in The Field (2 November 1912):
The skin of the killed lijagulep went on sale in London shortly after the alleged tragedy and as noted in 1968 by German cat specialist Dr Helmut Hemmer, it appears to be this skin, mounted in a standing pose very closely corresponding with the illustration by Frohawk, that is displayed at France's National Museum of Natural History. In addition, there is a mounted jaguar-lion hybrid, preserved in a lying-down pose with head raised, at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring, England.
To put the Congolese spotted lion into its proper context as a hybrid, lions had been hybridized with several big cat species, several of which are mentioned in the media accounts of the Congolese spotted lion, supporting the theory that the animal was a hybrid.
A mounted specimen labelled as a jaguar-lion hybrid is displayed at the Rothschild Museum in Tring, England. The Paris specimen is the closest we have to an impression of how the Congolese spotted lion may have looked when alive. The age and pose of this specimen suggests it is the skin of the female lijagulep killed in Glasgow. Hemmer identified it as being either lion x jaguar or being lion x (leopard x jaguar).
Leopards have been crossbred with jaguars to produce jaguleps (also known as leguars or lepjags), one such was the dam of the lijagulep. As mentioned in the quote from The Times as evidence in favour of the cat being a hybrid, leopards had also been crossed with pumas (see pumapards).
In general, male big cat hybrids are sterile while female big cat hybrids are fertile and may be bred back to one of the parental species or to another big cat species, as was the case with the Congolese spotted lion (a 3-species complex hybrid).
In general, hybrids are no longer bred by zoos as the current emphasis is on conservation of pure species. The only hybrid big cats commonly and deliberately bred in recent times are ligers. It is unlikely that further lijaguleps will be bred. In theory, if one of these hybrids were to be reproduced and was fertile, a tiger could make for an interesting four species cross.