who's a big boy? ok you're huge!

Today im tipping my hat to the wonderful creation of the Liger. For those of you who havent heard this term this is the off spring from a male lion and a female tigress. Pretty cool, but what's so special about it? Well in lions it is the male that carries the growth gene and the female in the case of tigers, so when you mix these two together the end result is a giant!

There's no hiding from Hercules as his owner takes him for a stroll....

Although this is super cool, in the wild this is very unlikely. a male lion meeting a bunch of female tigers.. sounds like a cat fight. Also being so big wouldn't be a great advantage in the wild. The amount the Liger needs to consume to survive is ALOT and being so large would probably make hunting/stalking harder. So as you can imagine this  has only been recorded in captivity, sometimes an accident!

A tiger on the left compared to the Liger on the right

It's not so surprising really, we cross breed dogs all the time. Horses crossed with donkeys make mules, you also might of heard the story about grizzly bears and polar bears making pizzlies!  They even think we may even be a result of cross breeding! But of all the hybrids i think the Liger is the coolest, mainly because of its sheer size and cuddly 'looking' face.

This is Hercules, a 64 stone Liger with his little brother.

There are thought to be around 20 Ligers and Tigons around the world altogether. Heres how you know what to call it:

Lion + liger = li-liger
Lion + tigon = li-tigon
Tiger + liger = ti-liger
Tiger + tigon = ti-tigon

Other Kitty hybrids:

Leopard x lion= Leopon

Bengal Cat x Ocicat = Cheetoh

African serval x Asian Leopard cat x domestic house cat = Ashera

serval x domestic cat = savannah

Bengal cat x tabby cat = Toyger

(A result of cross breeding its not a real hybrid but still, super cute!)

here my sources and some great links to check this out further:

http://ligerliger.com/ this is the homepage for the park where Hercules comes from, a great website and foundation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger good old wikipedia for those straight forward facts!