Six years old ligress Zita is a unique animal. She is the child of love, that happened between an African lion and a tigress form Bengal. 

Those two animals were kept in the cages next to each other from their youth, over time that friendship grew into something else. Ligress for a long time lived in a cage with another pride of the Novosibirsk zoo - old lion named Simon.

Unfortunately it is already two years, since he passed away. Loneliness is not good to anybody, and the zoo management decided to help the ligress with the partner. It will be a young lion. In December, his cage will be placed next to her in the hope that friendship will grow into love.Young lion is six months old now and he still lives in the aviary with his parents. When he catches up with the ligress in size, it is quite possible that both animals will move to a common enclosure.

The thing is that the young lion will need to be resettled from his parents anyway in order to avoid a family conflict with his own father. And another reason - the apparent loneliness of a ligress, who - at the moment - communicates only with the staff and the visitors of the zoo.

Naturalists from the zoo do not have the purpose of obtaining progeny from the ligress, although the issue with the offspring from this couple is quite optimistic. Ligers (males) are genetically sterile, because they are not from the natural species. Nature has arranged so that children from the ligresses can only come from a tiger, or a lion.