Rostov-on-Don (Russia) (AFP) – An extremely rare cross between a tiger and a lion has been born in a travelling zoo in southern Russia, one of only a few dozen of the animals believed to exist.

Named Tsar, the two-month-old liger cub, is the offspring of a tigress Princess and lion Caesar, zoo director Erik Airapetyan told AFP.

“They have lived together for a long time and know each other well. When the tigress was on heat, she didn’t have any other choice,” he said.

The cub has the beige fur of a lion and the stripes of a tiger and is currently being fed on milk from one of the zoo’s goats.

Ligers can grow to be the biggest cat in the animal kingdom, weighing more than 400 kilograms.

A liger called Hercules in the United States is currently listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the biggest feline in the world, at a weight of 418 kilograms and length of 3.33 metres.