Are Tiger and Lion mating rituals similar ?

Are Tiger and Lion mating rituals similar?

A liger is the offspring of a male lion and female tiger. The offspring of a male tiger and female lion is called a tigon. Both are usually sterile, as the parent species have different numbers of chromosomes, but occasionally a female will be fertile. Whilst these animals are 'man-made' in that they are not known to occur naturally in the wild, they are NOT the result of artificial insemination as some people seem to think. A lion and tiger are simply housed together, often from a young age, so that they are accustomed to each other and will mate when the female comes into season. 

Their mating rituals are very similar. The male knows the female is in heat from her scent - she releases certain pheromones that inform him of her condition. You will often see male cats checking if females are in heat using the 'flehmen' reaction - a grimace in which the male pulls back his lips, baring his teeth, and sticks out his tongue. This draws scent over the Jacobson's organ in the roof of the mouth, which produces a sense somewhere between smell and taste and is especially useful in analysing pheromones. 

The female also 'flirts' with the male, rubbing up against him, flicking her tail across his face, and rolling on the ground in front of him. They will mate every fifteen to twenty minutes for at least three days. The penis of all male cats is covered in backward-facing barbs which cause pain to the female when withdrawn - this is thought to help stimulate ovulation in the female, as cats are induced ovulators (this means that their bodies require the stimulus of mating before they release eggs). It's also the reason that female cats often turn on their mates, snarling and clawing, when they dismount.

Note that reputable zoos frown on the breeding of hybrids such as ligers and tigons, as they have no value from a conservation point of view and are taking up space and resources that could be used to breed endangered species. They are basically freaks bred to persuade a gullible public into paying out to see them.

Wild Cat, tigers are not extinct in Africa. There were never any tigers in Africa, except in zoos. They are an exclusively Asian species. The vast majority of lions are found in Africa, though there is a small population of Asiatic lions in the Gir Forest of India. Their range here does not overlap with that of tigers, though historically it did - lions were once much more widespread in Asia, before hunting and habitat loss reduced them to this one small population.