They will have different sex chromosomes (Y from tiger or lion) and different mtdna. So there might be some slight differences. And it's not out of the question that one is more viable than the other.
EDIT: Wikipedia: "Notably, ligers typically grow larger than either parent species, unlike tigons"
You are trying to take an interesting discussion about species off on a wildly irrelevant tangent. There is no sexism here and the names are not designed to promote patriarchy.
It's off topic and inflammatory. And this follow up comment reinforces the appearance that the point is basically shit stirring and nothing else.
I talk about sexism pretty regularly on HN. Sometimes it doesn't go well and sometimes it does. You absolutely can discuss sexism here. This is just not a good approach to doing so.
Yes, that’s arbitrary; unless we decide to always make the sexes explicit, we have to make a choice as to whether to mention the male parent or the female parent first.
Hoever, just as with Liger and Tigon, the two donkey/mule variants have different names:
Male Donkey (jack) + Female Horse (mare) = Mule
Female Donkey (jenny) + Male Horse (stallion) = Hinny
Well obviously one or the other needs to go first. Why do you think the first one was chosen because it has the greater honor? If it was the other way round, wouldn't it look just as patriarchal to you ("Ladies first" and all that)? And are you sure they didn't flip a coin to see which parental gender would go first?
I don't know how they made the choice, of course. And if you have sexism on your mind, there isn't a right choice in this situation, I agree. However, if you take stock of all the similar choices (male or female) that we make in these mundane contexts, would it come out even? Or would it lean heavily to one side?
