Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Alright, so this is the latest story...Zach has been an expert on his animals for quite sometime now. As you would somewhat expect a 2 year old to be. He knew what a walrus was at 19 months from an animal zoo set he had. At that time he learned quite a few animals. He sees a koala on TV, points and says a koala bear. He sees a white bear and knows it's a polar bear. He could probably even tell you the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. (The alligator has a pointed nose and the crocodile has a round one for those of you who were wondering how to tell.) However we have had quite a jolting interruption to all of these exciting animal recognitions...he now constantly calls a tiger a lion. Now where this sudden confusion began we are not quite sure. It almost seems as if it has happened ever since we visited daddy at work. He kept wanting to call the stuffed tiger a lion. One night we were going over all the animals and playing and he labeled them all off correctly. He even correctly calls the cheetah a cheetah. Now I would assume one would confuse a spotted cat with a striped cat as opposed to a striped cat with a huge bushy maned cat. Now he called the tiger correctly when he was 19 months, but all of a sudden he has this urge to call it a lion. I know you may be wondering if he's just trying to be silly, but I assure you this is not the case. When we were playing with the animals we went over the tiger a gazillion times. Showed him and said, "Zachary this is a tiger." Then we would ask, "what animal is this?" Of course he would respond, "A lion!" Tyler and I were laughing continuously about the fact that he wouldn't even retort tiger after us having just labeled it as so. He is of the age where you only have to tell him something once and he remembers it. However, unfortunately, with Exxon's mascot this does not seem to be the case. I try to justify it as the tiger looks somewhat like a lioness and one time I did show Zach a female lion and call it as such, a lion. Surely this is just a phase and eventually he will be able to tell the difference between the a tiger and a lion. At least he still calls the lion a lion. Even after having gotten Zach to call the tiger a tiger, the next time he insisted on calling it a lion. Oh well, I guess as long as the tigers don't find out life will still go on.