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China's first tiger-lion hybrid has died after one week of life, plunging quite a few residents in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu province, pet fans in particular, into grief.

Veteran zookeeper Zhu Jialin, who cared for the cub, said the cub had begun to run a high fever at noon on Aug. 27, and medical workers did all they could to break the fever, reduce inflammation and transfuse medicines into the cub's body.

On Aug. 28, the fever was reduced temporarily, but climbed again the next day. Despite every possible effort taken by veterinarians and zookeepers, the cub could not be saved.

The cub had a weak immune system since it failed to suck the milk from his mother lion and was instead suckled by a black dog, Zhu said. It caught a cold and was then struck by high fever and an upper respiratory tract infection before dying of heart failure.

The death of the cub at 11:24 a.m. August 29 cannot be taken as an accident, Zhu said, explaining that both lion and tiger cubs must overcome three crisis periods, namely, the first, at one week after birth, the second, at two weeks after birth and the third, at four weeks after birth.

The cub died in the first crisis.

After born in the Hongshan Zoo on Aug. 22, the tiger-lion cub had rejoiced residents in Nanjing, who'd been busy choosing names for the baby.

Experts said wild tigers and lions cannot mated in field owing to different living environments. When raised together artificially, they have a pregnant rate of only one to two percent.

Only eight to 10 lion-tiger cubs and tiger-lion cubs are livingin the world, according to statistics.