Liger Facts

  

     The liger is a hybrid offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. The liger has parents in the same genus but of different species. It is distinct from the similar hybrid tigon, and is the largest of all known extant felines.

Key Facts & Information

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

    The liger is the largest of the world’s felines, known to grow up to 12 feet tall when standing on their hind legs. The liger is an enormous animal with a large muscular body and broad head.
    Ligers tend to have sandy or dark yellow fur which is covered in distinctive faint stripes inherited from their mother. Although other variations in fur color have been known (including white when their mother is a White Tiger), the liger generally has a more lion-like appearance including the mane of the males.
    Along with their stripes, which tend to be most noticeable around their hindquarters, the liger may also inherit the spots found on the backs of tiger’s ears along with the tufted fur around their chins.

HABITAT

    Ligers don’t occur in the wild because tigers are mainly found in Asia while lions are mainly in Africa. These two species do not cross paths in the wild. That is why ligers live in zoos, sanctuaries, and with their private owners.

BEHAVIOR

    Despite their gigantic size and the fact that their parents are two of the planet’s most ferocious predators, the liger is known to have a relatively gentle and docile nature particularly when interacting with handlers.
    They have, however, been reported to be slightly confused as to whether or not they are lions or tigers as their most bewildering characteristic is the fact that they seem to love water.
    In the wild, it is common for tigers to enter water either to catch prey or to cool down in the heat and so they are naturally good swimmers, which is something that the liger seems to have inherited.
    Another odd thing is the fact that the liger appears to make both lion and tiger noises, but its roar is more like that of a lion.

DIET

    Like the rest of the world’s felines, the liger is a carnivorous animal that hunts and kills other animals in order to gain its nutrition.
    In captivity, they tend to eat an average of 20 lbs. of meat a day but it is thought that a liger would easily devour 100 lbs worth of food in one sitting.
    The liger has an enormous and incredibly strong jaw with sharp, pointed teeth which are ideal for tearing through flesh. Ligers also have very muscular bodies and sharp claws which also help them catch and eat their prey.
PREDATOR AND THREATS

    If they were found in the wild, the liger would be the most dominant predator and their environment would therefore have no natural predator to worry about, with the obvious exception of humans. The same as lions and tigers, ligers would be subjected to hunting for trophies.
    In captivity, many liger cubs are born with fatal birth defects due to the fact that it is the result of cross-breeding of two different species.
    Another problem to consider is the unnatural nature in which ligers are both bred and kept all around the world. It is highly unlikely that ligers can occur in the wild today. They are merely being bred and kept by zoos in order to make money.

RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANS

    The liger has been bred by people since the early 19th century when a litter of liger cubs was born in Asia in 1824. However, it was more than 100 years until the next recorded litter, which was in a zoo in South Africa just before World War II.
    Although ligers are known to be even tempered, there remains much controversy over the crossbreeding of two different species, particularly when it happens without human intervention.
    Today, there are a number of ligers found in zoos and animal institutes around the world, who are bred (generally by accident) and kept as a money-making attraction.

CONSERVATION

    There is no real scientific name assigned to the liger due to the fact that it is made from cross-breeding two separate species artificially. Since it is not found in the wild, the liger has no conservation status.
    The liger is found in only a handful of enclosures on the planet but they remain frowned upon by many as they do not exist in the wild and therefore have no value as such to conservation.
    Tigons (hybrid cross between a male tiger and a female lion) are more rarely found than ligers today. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were more of them than there were ligers. The breeding of ligers is now banned in a number of countries around the world.

Source: https://kidskonnect.com/animals/liger/

The mixture makes the animal Die Mischung macht das Tier

     

       An upload showing a giant cat that is said to be the result of a cross between a lion and a tiger or a liger (lion tiger) that is widely talked about on social media. This happened after Kody Antle uploaded her intimacy with Odin, her pet liger who was 6 years old.

   If examined more deeply, this crossing is considered to violate the nature of nature. The natural habitat of tigers is in Asia, while the natural habitat of lions is in Africa. So certainly there is nothing natural about the existence of a liger.

    "Marriage between lions and tigers will not occur in the wild," said Susan Bass, director of public relations for Big Cat Rescue, the organization for saving the world's big cats as reported by The Dodo.

    "Unfortunately, that happens when big cats caught from different species are kept together because irresponsible breeders and exhibitors know that people will pay more to see this unusual rare exotic cat," he explained.

     Bass assessed, because interbreeding is contrary to nature. Besides because many will be brought on display at the show because of their uncommon physique, there are many other things that lurk their safety too.

Tiger mothers who are forced to contain liger often experience life-threatening difficulties due to giving birth whose size does not match their bodies. So it's not surprising that there are only around 30 animals like him in the world, although the estimates vary.

     Not only that, liger often suffer from birth defects and other health problems. The Liger, if they survived their early childhood, could grow almost twice as big as one of their parents.

      Because they become very large, their organs cannot take it and their hearts can give because of their small body size.

      "Breeding cats is a matter of money," Bass said. "The well-being and health of children do not fit in. The recent birth of a liger child at a zoo in Russia is a perfect example of that." Bass explained again.

     Ligers are not the only example of big cats that are forced to breed unnaturally to make money for their owners. White tiger is also not a natural species, but the result of blood mating.

      Bass added that one way to defend tigers and lions that can be forced to breed nature is by never paying to see.

Pingtung’s liger reaches rare age of nine

     A liger that was adopted by an animal rescue center in Pingtung County shortly after it was born is now nine years old, which is rare for the mixed species, the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Rescue Center for Animals said.

     A liger refers to the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger.

     A-biao (阿彪) came to the center in 2010 after the Council of Agriculture seized it from a local farmer.
The farmer had put a male African lion and a female Bengal tiger into a pen together and bred them “for amusement” in contravention of the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法), the council said.

     Three cubs were produced from the litter, one of which died immediately after birth and another which died a week later, but A-biao survived, despite having a deformed spine due to missing DNA, the center said.
Under the care of center staff, A-biao has survived to the age of nine, but he has had a difficult life, the center said, adding that it hopes A-biao serves as a reminder about the need to respect wildlife.

    “The long-term expenses for raising [A-biao], including the cost of medical care and other resources, has been no small sum. Conservation is also getting costlier. Now more than ever we need the public’s help,” the center said.

     Any donations would be put toward improving facilities for the animals, it added.

     A-biao, like most ligers, is larger than either of his parents. He was born with a spine shaped like an “s,” a tail that was missing bones and an inoperative left hind leg, the center said.

     University professor Pei Jai-chyi (裴家騏) said that many of the animals at the center are exotic animals that were smuggled into the country and later abandoned, such as orangutans, sun bears and African spurred tortoises.

     Taiwan was once notorious for animal smuggling, but has since become known for its conservation work, he said.

     However, funding for conservation has been shrinking over the past decade, he added.

     The center receives 95 percent of its funding from the Forestry Bureau, which has slashed its conservation budget more than 30 percent over the past 10 years, he said, adding that the center relies on two vets, two assistant vets and 17 caretakers to look after 1,500 animals.

Source: http://www.taipeitimes.com

#liger #adopted #animal #rescue #center #Pingtung #County #mixed #species #National #University #Science #Technology

18 Astonishing Liger Facts - Fact Animal

The Liger is a hybrid. It is the offspring of a male Lion and a female Tiger. This means that the Liger has parents that are different species, but the same genus.

Ligers only exist in captivity today, because the habitats of the parental species do not overlap out in the wild. They typically grow much larger than either parent species.

Another hybrid from the mating of the same animals – only reversed, a male Tiger and a female Lion – is known as the Tigon, and are often much smaller.

Liger Facts Overview

Habitat:	Do not occur naturally in the wild.
Location:	Zoos & private ownership.
Lifespan:	15 – 25 Years
Size:	9.8 – 12 ft (3 to 3.6 m)
Weight:	705 – 1,200 pounds (320 – 550 kg)
Color:	Tawny, with feint tiger stripes.
Diet:	Wild deer, boar
Predators:	No natural predators, but potentially other big cats.
Top Speed:	80 kph (50 mph)
No. of Species:	1
Conservation Status:	Not listed

Ligers tend to be more like a lion, than a tiger.
They are large, muscly and male ligers will have a mane, like a male lion, but often shorter than their father’s. They have dark tawny fur, with broad heads. They often have feint tiger stripes, inherited from their mother. Ligers are fond of swimming, just like Tigers (lions don’t like water), and are also quite sociable, just like lions.
The Liger is not a new hybrid as they date back to the early 19th century in India. The name was coined to describe the creature in the 1930s. The Liger has appeared in art as far back as 1798 when a color plate depicted one, and in 1825 a Liger and its parents appeared in an engraving. A pair of Liger cubs born in 1837 were even put on display for King William IV and Queen Victoria who succeeded him.
While thought to be extremely rare, historically lions and tigers may have interbred to produce ligers in the wild. The Asiatic lion once inhabited a much larger area of Asia, that may have meant it shared some territory with tigers. However, today, they are very much only cross bred in captivity, either accidentally or more often, purposefully as a rare attraction.

Interesting Liger Facts

1. The Liger is the largest known cat in the world.

Male Ligers can reach a length of 10 to 12-feet which makes them slightly larger than even large male lions or tigers in length. They weigh considerably more than a Tiger or Lion. A non-obese male Liger named Hercules was recognized as being the largest living cat on Earth in 2013, when he weighed a total of 922 pounds. He measured 3.33 m (131 in) and stood at 1.25 m (49 in) at the shoulder.

2. It’s estimated that there are fewer than 100 Ligers in existence.

The exact number is unknown, but this approximation is from Usman Masood who runs the website ligerzoos.com, and tracks reports of genuine ligers from around the world.
The USA is thought to hold the largest number of ligers, around 30 are in private hands. This is followed by China with approx. 20. The photo below is a Liger in the Siberian Tiger Park, Harbin, China.

South Korea, Germany, Russia and South Africa each have a few Ligers in captivity.

3. Ligers often suffer from obesity because they don’t get enough exercise in their small habitats and cages.

This makes them even larger. A Liger named Nook living in the Valley of the Kings animal sanctuary in Wisconsin weighed over 1,200-pounds (before dying in 2007).

4. Ligers can experience gigantism while dwarfism is known to occur in Tigons.

Animals species have a natural hormone that stops them from over growing in one of their parents. A slight mutation can stop them having it. But in the case of a liger, it’s the female lion which carries the hormone to stop growth. So a male lion genes combined with a female tiger results in a much larger cat in the form of a liger.

5. The Liger is not alone as being a large cat hybrid.

There are other big cat hybrids that can measure up close to the size of the Liger. The Litigon, which happens to be a rare hybrid from a male Lion and female Tigon, can grow to just about the same size as the Liger. One such example was a male Litagon named Cubanacan who weighed a total of 800-pounds. He lived in the Alipore Zoo in India.

6. Ligers appear to have a growth spurt early in the lives.

Hormonal issues probably contribute to this. The Liger grows fast when very young and then slows down as it approaches their adult size. By the time they reach six years of age, all the growing has taken place. The female Liger is also large in size growing up to 700-pounds and a length of 10-feet.

7. Ligers have relatively long lives.

A female Liger named Shasta born in 1948 at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah lived to the age of 24. Hobbs, a male Liger lived to just about 15 years. He was in the Sierra Safari Zoo in Reno, Nevada and succumbed to liver failure.

8. Hybrid big cats are known to be fertile.

There is a great deal of documentation on this subject. In fact, the fertility of big cat females includes many different hybrids. There is actually a rule that describes it: in hybrid animals, where their sex is determined by sex chromosomes, if one sex is absent, rare or happens to be sterile, the animal will be born heterogametric – the sex that had two different sex chromosomes. It is called Haldane’s Rule. There are other hybrids in the animal kingdom that are actually sterile.

9. Ligers are fast. They have been clocked running up to 50mph.

The size of the liger does not inhibit their running speed, they are as fast as a Lion and generally considered by experts as faster. If you were being chased by one, the weight of the animal hitting you would knock the wind out of you, or render you unconscious.

10. The Liger shares more traits with a lion, than a tiger.

As a Liger is the hybrid offspring of a Lion and a Tiger, it carries many different traits from both parents. However, the Liger has far more traits from the Lion parent than it does from the Tiger parent.

Or at least that is the findings of several researchers who have observed Ligers both in the wild and in captivity. Naturally, they live longer in captivity than in the wild.

11. A Ligers roar sounds like a lion.

As the Liger is essentially a cross between a Tiger and a Lion, the Liger roar sounds a lot like the roar of a Lion. However, there are circumstances when the Liger roar will sound more like the roar of a Tiger as well.

12. The majority of Ligers born until recent decades, were actually the result of accidents.

That is to say, the breeding was not intentional. However, more recently they have been bred purposefully in captivity as a unique attraction.

13. Lions and tigers don’t overlap in the wild today, except in one location – India’s Gir Forest.

Until now, no ligers have been found there. Typically they don’t cross the species line, and are not interested in each other. It’s been argued that crossbreeding will only occur in unique circumstances, such as when stuck in captivity and there are no other mates available of the same species.

14. Ligers having poor immune systems is a myth.

While it’s often argued that one of the problems of being a hybrid is that the immunity system gets compromised, actually Ligers appear to have hybrid vigor. This means quite the opposite, they are often fit, healthy, bigger and stronger. However, while Ligers haven’t been studied at great length, there are arguments that they have a greater chance of genetic issues and other defects.

15. The tiger mother requires help at birth.

As the Liger is considered one of the biggest cats on the planet, the Tiger mother usually requires a C-section in order to properly deliver the Liger cub as it will be larger than a normal Tiger cub.

16. Ligers were popularised in the 2004 cult classic movie, Napoleon Dynamite.

The liger was ‘pretty much’ the favourite animal of the socially awkward Napoleon.
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He’d spend time doodling them, and other fantasy creatures.

17.  Crossbreeding of Ligers is often considered as unethical.

Conservation scientist Luke Dollar argues that any crossbreeding between big cat species is unethical and is the result of greed or irresponsible breeding.

“I can think of no legit excuse for a liger or tigon to exist. If we want to recognize and honor big cats as they naturally occur in the wild, why would we possibly experiment in these completely unnatural and not biologically founded practices?”

Accredited zoos frown on crossbreeding big cats and often Ligers can be found in private hands and outside main zoos.

18. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the accrediting body for zoos in North America, does not approve of Ligers.

Steve Feldman a spokesperson from the AZA says Zoos should instead focus on wildlife-conservation programs.
  
Textual quote, web site: https://factanimal.com/ligers/

LIGER world's biggest cat

Liger Population in USA

 According to the official estimates, there are more than 50 ligers in USA only. These 50 ligers live at different zoos, animal sanctuaries, animal safari parks, animal reserves and animal rescue centers. The official count of such zoos and sanctuaries etc. with ligers is in between 24 to 28. Over the years; we have witnessed that more and more numbers of zoos and animal sanctuaries within United States are accumulating the ligers within their premises.

   "The USA has at least 50 ligers at its different zoos and animal sanctuaries etc. and there might be more ligers in USA living in different private facilities across the country".

Some of them have a single liger while others might have as many as almost a dozen numbers of ligers. The chances are there might be more than 50 ligers in United States because a lot of private properties and private animal reserves have ligers and their official count is almost impossible to make. Therefore; let's stick with the official number of ligers as the 50 and explore further about liger counts from different perspectives in this write-up. 

 
 Population of Ligers in USA

 
50+ Ligers in USA Numbers of Total Zoos etc.
24 to 28 US Zoos with Ligers Numbers of Ligers in Each Zoo
As Low as 1, as high as 12 Ligers in Private Residences
Not-Countable Chances are
Numbers of Ligers will be higher than 50 Ligers
If we compare the US population of the ligers with the rest of the world, the US liger population is way high as compared to the population of the ligers in other countries. The other main countries with a significant numbers of liger population include the China, Russia and the Thailand. These countries only started breeding the ligers within the 21st Century and within a decade or so they have also become one of the main references of the liger population in the world.

   "The United States is the top country to have maximum population number of ligers i.e., 50 ligers. China has 25, Russia has 15 while Thailand has 8 to 10 ligers".

China has in between 20 to 25 ligers, Russia has around 12 to 15 ligers and Thailand has about 8 to 10 ligers at their different zoos, animal sanctuaries and safari parks etc. Even if we combine the numbers of ligers from these countries altogether, their total number marginally reaches the 50 liger mark. Therefore; with 50 numbers of ligers, the USA also tops the list to have maximum numbers of ligers by any country in the world.

 
The most popular animal safari park to have ligers in USA is the Myrtle Beach Safari. They are also one of the pioneers to introduce the ligers on the mainstream media. Myrtle Beach Safari is located at the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA. Ligers are part of this safari park for decades. Over the years, the Myrtle Beach Safari has introduced a lot of ligers at its premises. Currently; the world's biggest liger i.e., Hercules the liger is also part of the Myrtle Beach Safari. Furthermore; the world's rarest white ligers are also part of the Myrtle Beach Safari. 

 
Apart from Myrtle Beach Safari, the Wynnewood Zoo in Oklahoma, USA has the maximum numbers of ligers in USA. This zoo has as many as 12 ligers and most probably it is the only zoo in the world to have this many ligers at its premises. In addition to the ligers, the Wynnewood Zoo even has Li-ligers, Ti-ligers, Li3-Ligers and Ti3-Ligers as well. Apart from Wynnewood Zoo, other liger zoos and animal sanctuaries which have ligers have them in numbers of 1 or 2 only. 

 
Another important statistic about the liger population within the USA is about the Floridian state. The state of Florida has the honor to have maximum numbers of zoos, safari parks and even foundations with ligers. There is also a great possibility that the Floridian state of USA, has more numbers of ligers than any other state (Oklahoma marginally closer) of USA. The Jungle Island and the Zoological Wildlife Foundation are the popular destinations in Florida for many years with ligers. 

 
Other zoos and animal sanctuaries with ligers include McCarthy's Wildlife Sanctuary, Endangered Animal Rescue Sanctuary, Big Cat Habitat and Octagon Wildlife sanctuary. The Zoological Wildlife Foundation and the Octagon Wildlife Sanctuary are one of the newest ones to have ligers. Apart from Florida, as many as 13 states within USA have ligers.
A decade ago from the early 2000s to the late 2000s, there were hardly 15 to 20 ligers within very few number of states of United States. In 1980s and 1990s; there seems to be less than 10 ligers within United States and during those days Samson and Sudan were very famous ligers from South Carolina, USA. At the same time, the state of Michigan used to have more numbers of ligers than any other state within United States. In Michigan, a man named as Patrick Hoctor used to own at least 7 ligers at its private reserve. 

 
The first ever liger in United States was born in 1948. It was Shasta the liger and she lived for 24 years and died in 1972. When Shasta died, she was the only liger in the world at that time. Shasta also holds the record for the longest living (24 years) liger in the world. These statistics indicate that from 1950s to 1970s, the population of the ligers within United States was merely a single or two ligers. The trend changed in 1980s and 1990s, when the liger population increased to around 1 dozen ligers. During the 2000s, it increased to 15 to 20 ligers and in 2010s, it further increased to almost 3 times with more than 50 ligers within USA.

 
Lastly; it is expected that the population of the ligers will grow further not only within United States but also in many countries all around the world. Currently; there are more than 100 ligers in the world and United States has more than 50% of this population share. Ligers are considered as one of the true brand ambassadors for the big cats.

 
The ligers captivate people's attention because of their unique and astonishing characteristics which also prompts people to take a very keen interest within the conservation of the big cats. Therefore; the expected rise within the liger population in future may further boost the conservation efforts within the big cats too along the way.

textual quote from web page:

http://www.ligerworld.com/liger-population-usa.html?fbclid=IwAR3B8ICtTHRW9Uqw1ev6QmR1H0NUG69JpRcKMqK9wPPciVbcyUVBDVGKkQA
 

 

A roaring success, the world's first white ligers: Four brothers are rarest big cats on the planet

These adorable cubs may look cute and unassuming but they are in fact the rarest of their species – and could grow to be the biggest cats in the world.

The four handsome male ‘liger’ cubs are the first ever to be born from a white male lion and white female tiger, making them the world’s most unique big cats.

There are only around 300 white lions and 1,200 white tigers left in the world, so the cubs’ father, Ivory and mother, Saraswati, are extremely rare in their own right.
But now, having been brought together at Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina, they have produced the first ever white lion-tiger hybrids - commonly known as ligers.

There are around 1,000 ligers in the world – most in captivity – but none of them are white.
Born only six weeks ago, the young animals already weigh 15lbs and gain on average a pound in weight every day.

And the boys, named Yeti, Odlin, Sampson and Apollo, already have their own personalities.
Apollo is the smallest, who his owners say behaves more like a house kitten, purring all the time and always demanding to be stroked.

Yeti is the biggest and most boisterous, pushing past his smaller brothers and always wanting to be the centre of attention.

The cubs’ uncle, Hercules, is officially the world’s largest cat at 922 lbs and 131 inches long and is featured in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Founder and director of the safari, Dr Bhagavan Antle, who bred the animals, says he is sure Yeti will reach this size – if not larger.
‘I am convinced Yeti will make the Guinness Book of Records. He’s so big already – he has such a big, fat head and paws.

‘All the cubs grow so quickly, but Yeti is already so much bigger.

‘I skip a day seeing them and it looks like they’ve doubled in size. It’s like someone’s blowing them up with a tyre pump.’

Dr Antle, who set up the safari 31 years ago and had his first litter of ligers in 1988, said: 
‘People are getting on planes to fly in to see them.
‘We’ve had everyone from Congress to people of all walks of life come. They are honestly such an incredibly unique sight.

‘They have a beautiful creamy colour that I’ve never seen on a cat before.'

The cubs are expected to reach 10ft tall by two years old and weigh around 750lbs.

When they are four-years-old they could weight over 900lbs.

Their father, Ivory, is a white African lion and their mother, Saraswati, is a snow white Bengal tiger.

Ligers tend to enjoy swimming, which is a characteristic of tigers, and are sociable like lions.

textual quote from web page: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2534297/A-roaring-success-worlds-white-ligers-Four-brothers-rarest-big-cats-planet.html?fbclid=IwAR2lycRQutdfI1T6sarQfeWHNzbZK7xfNxHyrQ2Idap4qTNDrjYIaIA-Ouc

Largest Cat

The largest living cat is Hercules, an adult male liger (lion x tigress hybrid) currently housed at Myrtle Beach Safari, a wildlife reserve in South Carolina, USA. In total length, he measures 3.33 m (131 in), stands 1.25 m (49 in) at the shoulder, and weighs 418.2 kg (922 lb).

Hercules eats around 13.6 kg (30 lb) of meat – about the same weight as a two-year-old child – every day, washed down with several litres of water.

His bother, Sinbad, is slightly taller, but is also lighter. Hercules has four nephews which were born in 2014, Yeti, Odin, Sampson and Apollo. These are the first white ligers ever born with Yeti being the largest of the litter.

About ligers

Ligers are generally larger than the two parental species, tigers and lions. In contrast, tigons, the hybrid of the reciprocal crossing of a male tiger and a lioness, are often smaller than their progenitors.

Although the cross between lions and tigresses happens naturally, without the need of IVF, this only happens in parks and reserves, as lions and tigers don’t cross territories in the wild. In general, male hybrids are sterile.

Bibliographic Source: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-living-cat?fbclid=IwAR1pgiQJpbKie0EpxCs6Z_kpKZFSsQ4PKVIYxSx4cgdi2MOpiT3KsRzBgm8
 

Cat Experts: Ligers and Other Designer Hybrids Pointless and Unethical

Ever heard of a liger? It’s the offspring of a male lion and female tiger. There’s also the tigon, which has a lion mother and tiger father. And the leopon, the progeny of a lion and a leopard—not to be outdone by the jagulep, a jaguar-leopard mix.

Feline hybrids aren’t found in nature. Lions and tigers don’t overlap in the wild (except in India’s Gir Forest, where until now no ligers have been found). And big cats in the same territory don’t cross the species line—they’re not interested in each other, just as humans aren’t drawn to chimps.

Instead, these animals are the offspring of big cats that crossbreed in captivity and they're destined to become curiosities in zoos and wildlife parks. While it might seem fun to see one of these oddballs in the flesh, advocates of big cat conservation say this hybridization has a dark side.

“With hybrids there’s a much greater chance of the genetics being messed up,” says Luke Hunter, who heads the wild cat conservation organization Panthera. This means there’s a higher likelihood of infertility and other defects, he says.

The prevalence of these problems in big cat hybrids isn’t known: Because the animals don’t exist in the wild, scientists haven’t studied them much.

But many of the crossbreeds live healthy lives, and some have even produced offspring—a female liger in a Russian zoo mated with a male lion and gave birth to a so-called liliger in 2012.

It’s not known, either, how many of the various big cat hybrids exist, but Usman Masood, who has collected online reports of ligers and runs the website ligerzoos.com, puts liger numbers at about a hundred.


Ligers, made popular by the 2004 cult classic Napoleon Dynamite, are gold mines because of their size. The faintly striped creatures grow to about five feet tall and can weigh up to a thousand pounds, more than twice the size of their lion fathers and tiger mothers.

Reports of liger births occasionally surface from countries around the world—in late January a Russian zoo announced the birth of a liger cub named Tzar. But ligerzoos.com posits that most ligers are in private hands in the United States. Accredited zoos frown on crossbreeding big cats.

“These cats of mine are big mellow guys,” and they’re healthy, says Gregg Woody, owner of Woody’s Menagerie in Mulberry Grove, Illinois, of his two seven-year-old ligers, Hank and Charlie. Woody takes Hank and Charlie around the country as part of a traveling liger exhibit. Their size, he says, is “shocking” to people.

According to Woody, the ligers' parents spent a lot of time together and eventually mated, which scientists say can happen when a lion and tiger live in close quarters and lack other options.

“Lions are tigers are separated by about seven million years of evolution,” Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, previously told National Geographic. “But they are still closely enough related that they can hybridize.”

NO BOON TO CONSERVATION

Feline hybrids aren’t helpful to the genetic diversity of big cats and have no conservation value, says Rob Vernon, spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which represents 230 zoos in the U.S and a handful of other countries.

According to the association, zoos today are supposed to be arks for threatened animals and educate the public about conservation efforts. “Propagating animals that specifically do not represent the normal characteristics and variation of the species creates a confused educational message,” states the association’s policy against the intentional breeding of animals to produce rare traits.

Conservation scientist Luke Dollar says that any crossbreeding between big cat species is unethical and is the result of greed or irresponsible breeding.

“I can think of no legit excuse for a liger or tigon to exist,” says Dollar, program director for National Geographic Society’s Big Cats Initiative. “If we want to recognize and honor big cats as they naturally occur in the wild, why would we possibly experiment in these completely unnatural and not biologically founded practices?”

HYBRIDS GONE WILD

While we know that lions and tigers have yet to get frisky in the wild, it’s certainly possible for two species to produce a hybrid in nature. “Hybridization occurs among carnivores in the wild when the reproductive opportunities become really, really limited,” Hunter says.

Coywolves, the offspring of wolves and coyotes, number in the millions in the U.S. and eastern Canada. Deforestation, hunting, and poisoning of wolves in the east meant that they increasingly bred with coyotes spreading into eastern wolf territory from the U.S. Southwest.

Climate change can also have an effect. Scientists predict that melting Arctic ice will lead more than 20 marine mammals to hybridize. Already, grizzly bears moving northward into higher latitudes have been known to mate with polar bears. The result: brown-pawed, white-coated “pizzlies.”

Bibliographic Source: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/wildlife-watch-liger-tigon-big-cat-hybrid/?fbclid=IwAR2oej0wz1Gcntx3HdXBH22DvGB5pXd1dQzglU480iNKDbcEM-4huEMb5oo

LIGER

<sup>The liger is a hybrid offspring of a male lion (Panthera leo) and a female tiger (Panthera tigris). The liger has parents in the same genus but of different species. The liger is distinct from the similar hybrid tigon, and is the largest of all known extant felines. They enjoy swimming, which is a characteristic of tigers, and are very sociable like lions. Notably, ligers typically grow larger than either parent species, unlike tigons.

Scientific classification 
 
Kingdom:       Animalia
Phylum:         Chordata
Class:            Mammalia
Order:            Carnivora
Suborder:      Feliformia
Family:          Felidae
Subfamily:     Pantherinae
Genus:          Panthera
Species:        P. leo♂ × P. tigris♀



History

The history of lion-tiger hybrids dates to at least the early 19th century in India. In 1798, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) made a colour plate of the offspring of a lion and a tiger. The portmanteau "liger" was coined by the 1930s.</sup>

^{In 1825, G. B. Whittaker made an engraving of liger cubs born in 1824.[3] The parents and their three liger offspring are also depicted with their trainer in a 19th-century painting in the naïve style.}

 

^{Two liger cubs born in 1837 were exhibited to King William IV and to his successor Queen Victoria. On 14 December 1900 and on 31 May 1901, Carl Hagenbeck wrote to zoologist James Cossar Ewart with details and photographs of ligers born at the Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg in 1897.} 

<sup>In 1935, four ligers from two litters were reared in the Zoological Gardens of Bloemfontein, South Africa. Three of them, a male and two females, were still living in 1953. The male weighed 340 kg (750 lb) and stood a foot and a half (45 cm) taller than a full grown male lion at the shoulder.

Although ligers are more commonly found than tigons today, in At Home In The Zoo (1961), Gerald Iles wrote "For the record I must say that I have never seen a liger, a hybrid obtained by crossing a lion with a tigress. They seem to be even rarer than tigons."</sup>

<sup>Size and growth

The liger is often believed to represent the largest known cat in the world. Males reach a total length of 3 to 3.6 m (9.8 to 11.8 ft), which means that they rival even large male lions and tigers in length.[9] Imprinted genes may be a factor contributing to the large size of ligers. These are genes that may or may not be expressed on the parent they are inherited from, and that occasionally play a role in issues of hybrid growth. For example, in some dog breed crosses, genes that are expressed only when maternally-inherited cause the young to grow larger than is typical for either parent breed. This growth is not seen in the paternal breeds, as such genes are normally "counteracted" by genes inherited from the female of the appropriate breed.

Other big cat hybrids can reach similar sizes; the litigon, a rare hybrid of a male lion and a female tigon, is roughly the same size as the liger, with a male named Cubanacan (at the Alipore Zoo in India) reaching 363 kg (800 lb). The extreme rarity of these second-generation hybrids may make it difficult to ascertain whether they are larger or smaller, on average than the liger.

It is wrongly believed that ligers continue to grow throughout their lives due to hormonal issues.[citation needed] It may be that they simply grow far more during their growing years and take longer to reach their full adult size. Further growth in shoulder height and body length is not seen in ligers over 6 years old, as in both lions and tigers. Male ligers also have the same levels of testosterone on average as an adult male lion, yet are azoospermic in accordance with Haldane's rule. In addition, female ligers may also attain great size, weighing approximately 320 kg (705 lb) and reaching 3.05 m (10 ft) long on average, and are often fertile. In contrast, pumapards (hybrids between pumas and leopards) tend to exhibit dwarfism.

Ligers are about the same size as the prehistoric Smilodon populator and American lion.</sup>
 

^{BIBLIOGRAPHIC SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger}