A leopon is a mix of half-lion, half-leopard. It’s made by the mating of a female lion (lioness) and a male leopard. The term is sometimes truncated to just “leopon”. A leopon has a head of a lion and a body of leopard. Leopons’ bodies are as large as lions, but with legs short like leopards. Carl Hasenbeck, credited with creating the modern zoo as we know it, allegedly bred leopons early in the 20th century, but they did not survive infancy. No evidence remains.
In 1910 saw the first (reliably) written record of a leopon.
It came out of India, where the Secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society, W.S. Millard, came across the animal. Two cubs were born in a litter, one of which died. Millard sent its pelt to his friend in London who studied it and made note of its mixed markings.
In Japan, scientists in the 1950s and ‘60s crossbred some well-known leopons in Nishinomiya. The big cats born at Koshien Hanshin Park were unique at this time, when other scientists were more interested in lion-tiger (liger) crossbreeding. Sonoko and Kaneo (lioness and leopard, respectively) grew up together and had their first litter of two cubs in 1959 and another in 1962. The second one produced one male and two female cubs. This program is arguably the most successful, having contributed the most data on leopons to date. Their research was popular with the public though debate waged in the scientific and humanitarian world. Leopons have not been bred in Japan since the offspring of Sonoko and Kaneo died in the ‘80s.
It’s generally accepted that leopons are a dead end.
In the Japanese trial, all the leopons produced were sterile and none successfully reproduced. Outside their program, no leopons on record grew to adolescence, let alone maturity.
