Cuvier reported a litter of three lion-tiger "mules" born in October 1824 in England to an African lion and an Asiatic tigress owned by an itinerant exhibitor and animal dealer. The parents shared a den and had mated frequently during July 1823. The cubs were exhibited to his Majesty. Cuvier presented an engraving of 2 cubs at 3 months old and observed that they would probably reach maturity. He described them as being dirty-yellow or "blanket-colour" with darker tiger-like stripes on the body and spots on the head and on parts of the body. They had lion-like heads. These appear to be the first recorded ligers.

Two of the liger cubs were painted by Geoffrey St Hilaire (1772 - 1844). In 1825, G B Whittaker made an engraving of the liger cubs born in 1824. The parents and their three liger offspring are also depicted with their trainer in a 19th Century painting in the naive style.

Two liger cubs born in 1837 were exhibited to His Majesty William IV and to his successor Queen Victoria. On 14th December 1900 and on 31st May 1901, Carl Hagenbeck wrote to zoologist James Cossar Ewart with details and photographs of ligers born at the Hagenpark in Hamburg in 1897.

In Animal Life and the World of Nature (1902-1903), A H Bryden described Hagenbeck's "lion-tiger" hybrids: It has remained for one of the most enterprising collectors and naturalists of our time, Mr Carl Hagenbeck, not only to breed, but to bring successfully to a healthy maturity, specimens of this rare alliance between those two great and formidable felidae, the lion and tiger. The illustrations will indicate sufficiently how fortunate Mr Hagenbeck has been in his efforts to produce these hybrids. The oldest and biggest of the animals shown is a hybrid born on the 11th May, 1897. This fine beast, now more than five years old, equals and even excels in his proportions a well-grown lion, measuring as he does from nose tip to tail 10 ft 2 inches in length, and standing only three inches less than 4 ft at the shoulder. A good big lion will weigh about 400 lb [...] the hybrid in question, weighing as it does no less than 467 lb, is certainly the superior of most well-grown lions, whether wild-bred or born in a menagerie. This animal shows faint striping and mottling, and, in its characteristics, exhibits strong traces of both its parents. It has a somewhat lion-like head, and the tail is more like that of a lion than of a tiger. On the other hand, it has little or no trace of mane. It is a huge and very powerful beast.

In 1935, four ligers from two litters, were reared in the Zoological Gardens of Bloemfontein, South Africa. Three of them, a male and two females, were still living in 1953. The male weighed 750 lb. and stood a foot and a half taller than a full grown male lion at the shoulder.

Although ligers are more commonly found than tigons today, in "At Home In The Zoo" (1961), Gerald Iles wrote For the record I must say that I have never seen a liger, a hybrid obtained by crossing a lion with a tigress. They seem to be even rarer than tigons.