The tigon’s return: a rare tiger-lion takes over the Manchester Museum

Name: Maude
Species: Panthera tigris x P. leo cross
Dates: 1932-1949
Claim to fame: Tigon
Where now: The Manchester Museum, Manchester

When Maude died, there was much sadness.

She was always quiet and good-mannered and always appeared to be perfectly groomed.

These words came from the pen of Gerald Illes, the director of Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester from 1933 to 1957. “During her lifetime here, Maude was always greatly admired and I would say loved by a very great number of our visitors,” he wrote to the Manchester Museum, where her body went in 1949.

For Maude was a tigon, a cross between a male tiger and a female lion (as opposed to a liger, which is a male lion/female tiger hybrid). If you’ve never encountered a tigon, it’s probably because they don’t make them like they used to. But at a time when the deliberate production of gawp-inducing hybrids did not carry such fraught ethical baggage, creatures like tigons would make an occasional crowd-pleasing appearance in zoos.

Maude and her tigon brother Kliou were born at Dresden Zoo in 1932. Illes purchased them in 1936 from Heinrich Hagenbeck, son of the legendary animal dealer Carl. They were shipped to Hull, reputedly insured for £2600.

There was much excitement at their arrival in the United Kingdom. “It is the first time both male and female have been exhibited together in this country,” announced the Daily Express. “Their diet will consist of horse flesh and water, with a day completely off food on Sundays – to keep them in condition.” Kliou died during the war, in 1942. But Maude lived another seven years.

In 1944, whist Maude was still a popular attraction at Belle Vue, Illes went on Childrens’ Hour on BBC Radio 4 to talk about some of the animals in his care and he mentioned a run-in that Maude had with the Molly the lion-house cat. The story was subsequently written up in a local paper, The Gorton Reporter.

A few months ago Molly was foolish enough to enter the tigon’s cage, and she was immediately seized by Maude who carried her around the cage in her mouth. Somehow, Molly managed to break away and then did a most remarkable thing which probably saved her life. She turned on the tigon and flew at her tooth and nail. Poor Maude was taken back at these unusual tactics and retired into a corner to think matters over. This gave the cat time to climb up on a high shelf from which she was rescued by the keeper.

When she died, Illes gave Maude to the Manchester Museum to be prepared into a mounted animal. This month, after painstaking restoration, Illes’ wish has finally been realised. Maude has gone on show after almost 70 years as a skin rolled up in storage.

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“Maude was far too beautiful and unusual an animal for her remains to be kept away in a storeroom,” says Henry McGhie, head of collections and curator of zoology at the Manchester Museum. “We want people to be able to admire her, and to hear more about the now-forgotten time when Manchester was home to such unusual animals. I hope that people will find her story as fascinating as we do.”