Ten foot tall "LIGER" - part lion; part tiger; weighs half a ton and is still growing!

Email | MAY 27, 2005 | Unknown

[CHARLITE]

How's this for size?

The 10ft Liger who's still growing...

He looks like something from a prehistoric age or a fantastic creation from Hollywood. But Hercules is very much living flesh and blood - as he proves every time he opens his gigantic mouth to roar. Part lion, part tiger, he is not just a big cat but a huge one,standing 10ft tall on his back legs. Called a liger, in reference to his crossbreed parentage, he is the largest of all the cat species.

On a typical day he will devour 200 lb of meat, usually beef or chicken, and is capable of eating 100lb at a single setting. At just three years old, Hercules already weighs half a ton.

He is the accidental result of two enormous big cats living close together at the Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species, in Miami, Florida, and already dwarfs both his parents. "Ligers are not something we planned on having," said institute owner Dr Bhagavan Antle. "We have lions and tigers living together in large enclosures and at first we had no idea how well one of the lion boys was getting along with a tiger girl, then lo and behold we had a liger."

50mph runner... Not only that, but he likes to swim, a feat unheard of among water-fearing lions. In the wild it is virtually impossible for lions and tigers to mate. Not only are they enemies likely to kill one another, but most lions are in Africa and most tigers in Asia. But incredible though he is, Hercules is not unique. Ligers have been bred in captivity, deliberately and accidentally, since shortly before World War II.

Today there are believed to be a handful of ligers around the world and a similar number of tigons, the product of a tiger father and lion mother. Tigons are smaller than ligers and take on more physical characteristics of the tiger. They have become famous cross-breed.

Look at the size of the head on this thing!

Now that's SOME cat!

[Allegra]

I caught you a delicious bass.

I love technology.

[eastforker]

Hey, have not heard from you lately, how are you and the mut doing?? Me and mrs. eastie extend our friendship and hope for a gathering of the Houston chapter shortly, al clayda is waiting.

[CHARLITE]

"She probably raised the liger from a cub and bottle-fed it, so it sees her as part of the cat family."

One time, some years ago, when I was on a safari in Kenya & Tanzania, a woman in our group wanted to "adopt" an orphaned lion cub. She was all animated and enthusiastic about the prospect.

At first, the tour guide treated it lightly, but when she began attempting to find out how to set up such a transfer from Kenya to the States, the guide sat her down and told her very forcefully that even if she raised a lion from a cub, the adult animal could turn on her without warning, at specific times of her monthly cycle.

The guide then gave some graphic details of several cases where that precise episode occurred. She never talked about importing a lion cub again.

Then, of course, there is the tragic story of Roy and the white Bengal tiger, who mauled him on stage in Las Vegas. No one knows - or probably ever will know if the tiger actually attacked Roy, or was trying to protect him. I opt for the former. I believe that it was an attack, not a mistaken perception on the part of the cat, that Roy was in danger. Why would that be? The cats did nightly shows in front of audiences all the time. Why would one woman with a "bouffant" hair style suddenly cause that cat to lunge at his master?

Even though the cat was fully trained and treated at all times as a "pet" and part of the family, it was still a wild animal and therefore unpredictable.

Char

[duckandcover]

What if we put human genes on a tyrannosaurus rex?

Do we get a homosaurus?

How big would that be?

[gubamyster]

Here's one for your collection.

[MilspecRob]

This is a vanity reply to this thread but did any Freepers think of Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars after seeing the Liger??

[RichInOC]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=847

[HiTech RedNeck]

Whose monthly cycle would trigger the cat's behavior? The woman's? Or the cat's?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Whose monthly cycle would trigger the cat's aggressive behavior? The woman's? Or the cat's?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Even though the cat was fully trained and treated at all times as a "pet" and part of the family, it was still a wild animal and therefore unpredictable.

Shoot I'd believe it, just take your normally frisky housecat and count the number of times it decided to nip your hand or scratch your arm, then scale that up to Mr. Liger.

[ArmyTeach]

I'd like to have someone more knowledgable back me up, but I seem to remember my (excellent) biology teachers in high school saying that most hybrids don't reproduce...

[CHARLITE]

My daughter has an "outdoor" cat which came with the house she bought. The animal was always fine. She came when the food was set out - everything hunky dorey. Then, suddenly, one day for no reason, the cat leapt up onto my daughter's back and hung on, grasping my daughter's skin with her claws, right through several layers of clothing!

There was nothing that provoked the cat. She just suddenly sprang up that way.

Imagine if it were a half a ton of feline!

Char :)

[Petruchio]

A liger at the Boston zoo has mated with Ted Kennedy. It has produced a drunken 4,000 pound mutant known as a "LIAR". Likes to swim off Edgartown and Chappaquidick. Bill Clinton.

[Selkie]

Male ligers are sterile. Female ligers are often fertile and can be mated to a tiger resulting in ti-liger offspring or to a lion resulting in li-liger offspring.

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

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Ahem, did you mean ALASKA-SIZED?

[Malsua]

Dang, that's a big kitty, and with an appetite of 200 lbs per day, unlikely to become a popular pet

I'm thinking the 175 pounds of Cat dump per day is a bigger issue. Any animal that craps a volume almost twice the size of my wife isn't welcome in the Mal household. LOL

That certainly is a neat animal. Scary, but neat.

[Boomer Geezer]

Gives a whole new meaning to Viking Kitty!

[CHARLITE]

"Gives a whole new meaning to Viking Kitty!

Whoever is the official FR custodian of the Viking Kitty collection should save these "Liger" photos for major trolls!

Char :)

[B-Chan]

It's pretty much my favorite animal.

[Boomer Geezer]

I think it is one of those three, according to the "ping list thread" I searched out ... that's why I added them.

The list of ping lists.