Image: Alexey Shilin / Wikimedia Commons Meet the world’s largest feline: the liger.
While ligers are certainly something to marvel at, you’ll never find them outside of a zoo – they’re a man-made hybrid cross between a male lion and a tiger, which never occurs in nature.
Ligers look like striped lions.
They inherit light brown fur from their lion fathers and dark stripes from their tiger mothers.
As a result of this mating between the tiger, the largest and heaviest feline, and the second largest, the lion, ligers are much larger and heavier than their parents.
In fact, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world’s largest feline is Hercules, a liger that weighs 922 pounds and measures 11 feet tall and 4 feet at the shoulder.
At 922 pounds (418.2 kilograms) and 11 feet (3.33 meters) tall and 4 feet (1.25 meters) tall at the shoulder, he is considered the world’s largest living feline.
Photo by Ali West.
Like many other unnatural hybrids, ligers often die in pregnancy or prematurely.
They suffer from a variety of uncomfortable genetic defects and diseases common to both lions and tigers, such as neurological problems, cancer, arthritis and organ failure.
Photo by Hkandy.
Due to these reasons plus the lack of conservation value and the threat to the mother tiger at birth, ligers are banned in most zoos and animal sanctuaries; And those chosen to breed the animals are hated by big cat guardians around the world. .
Watch the video below to see a liger in action: The liger is one of the most surprising hybrid species.
Click here to learn about 20 more amazing hybrid animals.
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