Liger Facts

A lovely male lion accidently crosses his path with a gorgeous female tiger. The lovely male lion has grown tired of flaunting his valour with his rivals. On the contrary, he finds himself mesmerized by the sparkle in the eye of the tiger. They consensually decide to make love and not war. And that is the story of how a baby liger is born. Note down that such a phenomenon can only occur under captivity breeding and not in the wild.  A beautiful offspring with stronger lionistic features, a liger grows to be a giant lion with muted stripes. The reverse of this phenomenal combination brings a ‘tigon’ into this world which was more common than ligers in the earlier decades. Ligers are undeniably the largest of the cat species and attract attention with their gargantuan trademark roars. Ligers are very likely to be confused for gigantic beasts as they tend to grow bigger than their parents. As intimidating as they are, one can’t deny their splendour and adorableness. Gather some quick and interesting facts about ligers as you proceed towards the end of this enlightening article.

Facts About Ligers

• As the nature of a lion is deprived of the faculty of swimming, these special hybrid creatures which we call ligers procure their swimming abilities from their mothers. Hence, it is commonly said that ligers get the best of both the parents. Sadly this statement doesn’t apply to a few unlucky crossbreeds and they end up procuring the worst from their parents!
• It is believed by many that since the liger is an offspring of two different species, they are sterile like mules and zonkeys. However, the truth is that the female ligers turn out to be fertile while the male ligers are indeed sterile. Male ligers are cursed with low testosterone and low sperm mobility (although some would interpret this as a blessing). As a result, ligers can never reproduce with one another. The female ligers on the other hand, can mate with a male of either parent species and produce ¾ lions or ¾ tigers.
• A liger has the capacity to devour 20lb of meat at once. In fact, a ravenous liger can definitely polish off 100lb of chicken or beef at one single setting.
• Many ligers stand out with their impressive and gorgeous manes.
• Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was in awe of the offspring of a lion and tiger and painted a colour plate in memory of the beautiful offspring in 1799. In 1825, G. B. Whittaker did an engraving of cute liger cubs born in 1824.
• The interactive park popularly known as Jungle Island located in Miami is proud to nurse a handsome liger called Hercules. Christened Hercules, the liger holds the record of the largest non--obese liger and has appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest living cat on earth.
• Hercules was featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper 360, Inside Edition and in a Maxim article in 2005. At the age of 3, Hercules’ weight was recorded to be 408.25 kg.
• Although the life span of a liger is rounded off at 35 by some researchers, it is very uncertain.  A female liger called Shasta, was born at Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, and died at the age of 24. A male tiger called Nook, who lived in Valley of the Kings animal sanctuary in Wisconsin, passed away at the age of only 21!