The Biggest Cat You've Ever Seen: The Liger!

[Aragorn]

All those who love felines, meet the liger, a cross-breed between a male lion and a female tiger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger). They don't normally show up anywhere in the wild, because lions and tigers generally live in different geographical regions, although there is some evidence that ligers — as well as tigons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigon), the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion — have at some point in the past existed in the wild due to Asian lions sharing overlapping territories with tigers.

Their enormous size — they are much larger than either of their parents, and a male liger can grow up to 3.5 meters in length and about 550 kg in weight, with a shoulder height 45 cm higher than that of a male African lion — is believed to be the result of imprinted genes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomic_imprinting) which normally regulate and arrest the growth in lions and tigers, but which appear to be silenced in ligers, depending on which parent donated which genes.

Contrary to some popular beliefs regarding cross-breeding, neither ligers nor tigons are sterile. They can indeed reproduce, and there have even already been male ligers which have mated with female tigons — unlike a liger, a tigon does not grow to be any larger than a tiger, and tigons are also known to often have neurological defects and quickly develop lots of health problems, commonly including cancer — and have produced further offspring of their own, called litigons.




http://i817.photobucket.com/albums/zz95/GuateGojira/hercules-largest-liger-2969_zps60e731b6.jpg

http://www.liger-hercules.com/liger-hercules-guinness-book/liger-hercules-many-records-guinness-book.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QGlZuLP.jpg

http://www.liger-hercules.com/liger-hercules-rajani-ferrante/rajani-ferrante-riding-liger-hercules.jpg

http://fewfice.com/dcim/llp/27/4281621-liger.jpg



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HgW86TwF_o

[Dreamtimer]

Wow. I've seen ligers. We went to see a traveling circus. They also had a lady who hung by her hair and spun around.

The cats were very big though the ones in these pictures are enormous. I didn't know they were fertile. I wonder if Pizzlies and Grolars are fertile. (bears)

[Aragorn]

I didn't know they were fertile. I wonder if Pizzlies and Grolars are fertile. (bears)

Well, so far, DNA samples seem to confirm that they would be, indeed. ;)

[lookbeyond]

What the !

[sandy]

Sometimes cross breeding is just sad..........and what is even sadder is that fact of pictures with females riding it, etc., .............marketing what??

[jcocks]

The animals in the pictures look reasonably happy and well kept, which is the main thing IMHO. I wonder what the normal temperament of these tigons and ligers are? Fairly docile, I'd imagine?

[Aragorn]

Sometimes cross breeding is just sad..........and what is even sadder is that fact of pictures with females riding it, etc., .............marketing what??

They're not marketing anything, Sandy. The two women in those pictures are their wranglers. The dark-haired woman riding the liger is the one with whom the animal grew up. She took four liger cubs into her home when they were born, and she raised them herself. She's only riding its back in the picture to show its immense size and strength.

Watch the video in the opening post for more information. ;)





The animals in the pictures look reasonably happy and well kept, which is the main thing IMHO. I wonder what the normal temperament of these tigons and ligers are? Fairly docile, I'd imagine?

Well, all wild animals which grew up with humans could be considered docile, exactly because they are accustomed to having humans for company, and they thus consider humans on equal footing with themselves, rather than as a potential prey.

I have seen a video of buddhist monks who have raised tigers that way, and those tigers are pretty docile too, but the monks make sure that the tigers will never see an injured human — not even if the injury is a mere scratch — because they don't want the tigers to associate humans with blood or meat, and thus with food.

There are also ample videos on YouTube of a man in South Africa — his name is Kevin Richardson, but he's more commonly known as the Lion Whisperer — who has bonded with several lions and leopards. And even after many years, these big cats still recognize him and greet him in the same enthusiastic and loving way as a dog greets its owner. They all jump him, and he completely gets buried under these ferocious predators. Your first thought is likely to be that they're going to tear him apart, but nothing is less true. Instead, they just roll around in the grass with him and they hug him like an old friend or relative. He even got a lioness to enter a pool of water, swimming toward him, and then she's resting her paws on his shoulders, looking at the water with curiosity. (Unlike tigers, lions normally hate swimming.)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFcNOhrIjg


That all said however, they are ferocious predators, so they do have killer instincts. The trick that these wranglers have to master, is not to trigger those instincts, and to have the animals think of their wranglers as merely other lions/tigers/ligers/leopards/panthers.

[pabranno]

The whole concept disturbs me..... I can't help thinking of Dulce. Montuak.
Where does it all stop? I know this seems innocuous, but I don't think we as a species do not seem to be able to moderate ourselves.
There's the rub.

[Aragorn]

The whole concept disturbs me..... I can't help thinking of Dulce. Montuak.
Where does it all stop? I know this seems innocuous, but I don't think we as a species do not seem to be able to moderate ourselves.
There's the rub.

Well, nobody forced these animals to mate, pabranno. ;) And there is ample evidence that, in a past longer gone, when Asian lions and tigers roamed the same hunting grounds, they naturally mated in the wild. Same thing with polar bears and grizzlies. In the end, the cross-breeding of related species is how new species have come into existence.

It's not like we're talking Jurassic Park here, with crazy scientists doing all kinds of experiments. ;)

[scibuster]

Those cats look a bit fat.
So they may stay in a Circus.
In free wildlife they are not so lazy and sweet much more dangerous.

[pabranno]

I see your point, Aragorn. I confused the issues a bit...:blsh:

[Windancer]

oh cheeze whiz, nice kitty kitty. To sit on one's back...Wow!