If you love Ligers!

(Hercules standing up against an old London tour bus)

You guys loved the Liger post they are some pretty popular kitties! I thought i should bring you more photos and more info to fill that Liger sized whole in your life.

(Hercules on a set of the London Underground tube station)

Last Time i spoke to you about a well known Liger called Hercules who weighs 900 pounds!  He is famous for the photo shoot where he stood up to the London bus during a mock British set celebrating the English influence in music in America. There are plenty more photos from that day i thought you would like to see them:

(Hercules Next to an old black cab)

The Liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion and a tigress, this equals a Liger  However the hybrid cross between a male tiger and a female lioness is called a Tiglon  

 A Liger is the largest known extant feline, where as a Tiglon is about the same size as a female tiger.

(Hercules showing man's puniness)

(Hercules crossing a mock Abbey road crossing)

Ligers share both of their parents traits; They love swimming which is the characteristic of a tiger and are very sociable just like lions.

(what a big head he has!)

A Liger often inherits both the rosette markings from the lion and stripes from the Tiger, Liger's appearance vary greatly from one another. 

White Liger's (normally a very pale yellow) have been achieved. Theoretically by crossing a white tiger and a white lion should produce an all white Liger possible without any markings at all. 

Black Liger's have never recorded and it may not be possible. Although very dark ones have been produced, it is normally due to the markings being overly present.

As the blue/ grey Maltese tiger is now extinct it is unlikely we will ever see that coat in a Liger.

(Hercules with a Liger cub)

 Ligers are only found in captivity, recorded as early as the the 1700's, as tiger habitats and lion habitats never cross over in the modern world. 

However, it is thought when the Asiatic Lion (also known as the Indian Lion) had a large territory and was thriving, there was a cross over of territory and there are legends of Liger's living in the wild. 

Many Liger's have been bred in captivity, although sometimes it has been noted it has been by accident. as was Hercules.

Hercules

(Hercules again)

Jungle Island is a wonderful interactive park in Miami, it is home to the largest non-obese Liger in the world; Hercules. Hercules received a great reception on many different tv shows and grabs attention from people all over the world. 

His trainer is Bhagavan Antle and has done a fantastic job with his Ligers with great breeding programs and the ability to raise Ligers to live long healthy lives. It is very difficult to perfect Liger breeding and are known for their low life expectancy   

Hercules and his little brother

Hercules lazing around

Hercules, the face of power!

People argue a lot over whether the Liger creation is fair. It is unlikely the animal would survive in the wild with the little left out there to hunt and the amount it needs to consume to keep active. Saying this. they can still run up to 50mph!

There are also health concerns for things like their joints when they become large, being in captivity they get loads of healthcare so they tend to live pretty good lives.

 I will leave the argument up to you guys, please comment whether you think this should be allowed.

Enjoy these photos of other Ligers i found to show you how different they can look from one another. 

on the left a female Liger and a male on the right

A very handsome Liger

who said i'm not cuddly?

a baby Liger, how cute!

Although i think this one may be a taxidermy exhibit, just a hunch.

(A more stripy Liger)

this myth is black and white

where babies come from:male lion and female tiger makes a Liger! yay!

tiger standing next to a liger to show height differenve

same pair again laying down

a lovely white liger

sorry who did you say the king on the jungle was?

A liger and tiger fighting

i doubt this was done by humas on purpose probably just play fighting in their enclosure

A Tigon to show the difference, Also a very stunning animal but much smaller/

lion, tiger or bear? nope, its a liger!

sources:

i own non of the writes to any og the images shown. please visit these websites below for there distribution rights

http://www.ligerliger.com/ home website for hercules

http://www.worldamazinginformation.com/2007/10/worlds-largest-liger-liontiger.html images

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/hercules-the-biggest-of-big-cats.html image 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/photogalleries/ligers_dynamite/photo2.html images of various ligers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger most images

Is "the life of pi" tiger real?

After watching the emotion wrenching "Life Of Pi" i was amazed at the visual feasts and brilliant graphics, it was because of the high quality graphics that i couldnt be sure if the tiger was real or not?

well the answer is both. Some shots are of real tigers but most (around 85%) were completely made up with CGI meaning the actors would have to play scenes on their own and the tiger would be digitaly put into the scene. It's the fact that it makes you question it that makes it so fantastic. It takes us a long way away from the days of laughing at the cardboard Jaws.

 “We used [real tigers] for single shots, where it was just the tiger in the frame, and they’re doing something that didn’t have to be all that specific in the action that we were after,” Westenhofer told The New York Times. “By doing that, it set our bar high for CGI. We couldn’t cheat at all. It pushed the artists to go and deliver something that’s never been done before, something as photo-real as anyone has ever done with an animal.”

It doesn't take long to appreciate the production of this film playing real or not during the film can be a real brain itcher!

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!

The Scottish Wildcat numbers are down to 400!!

We have to take a moment for the largest wild mammal in Britain, before it's too late. 


The Scottish cat numbers have dwindled down to 400 and that's including the ones in captivity!! They were here before human kind and long before our domesticated cat had evolved. But soon our last large mammal predator will just be a statistic among the British Wolf and British Lynx.


One of the biggest problems is that our feral/domesticated cats are breeding with the Scottish Wildcat and diluting the species into extinction. So much so, that some specialists studying them have had as little as only 3 sightings of these cats in the 25 years of their career. They are extremely suspicious of humans it can be impossible to track clans and even more so the lone population of the cat's.

Infamous for being unable to be tamed a true wild cat. Once roaming over all of Britain's pastures they have been chased to the far corners of Scotland. Larger than the domesticated cat it hunts deer and Lamb. Of course there are old folk tales of them killing human beings. Dogs are the most common casualties. Many believe the fen tiger sightings in England are really the wildcat or the 'Kellas' its descendant which is jet black.








They eat nothing but meat and most of their water intake comes from meat too. In-fact if cats are fed a vegetarian diet they would go blind, so a killer instinct is rife. Ferocious, cats have been seen killing themselves to kill an eagle attacking their cubs nest. Their teeth are so sharp they are known to bite clean through a gauntlet or hand. If approached they hiss and their hackles raise but instead of trying to look big like our house cat's they mock charge, exactly what a big cat like a lion or tiger would do.

The wildcats brain has a third lobe at the front of the brain that acts as a spirit level. This is far more advance than the human's brain in this respect but probably comes in handy when you are trying to catch flying objects in the air.

Fortunately it seems there are some out there trying to save the small population left. Huge efforts are being made this year to try and get a better idea of how many are still true wildcats and how we can encourage their numbers. We need to act fast before they are forgotten forever!

http://www.highlandtiger.com/

http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/wildcat.html

 pictures sourced from the Wikipedia website