Image: Alexey Shilin / Wikimedia Commons Meet the biggest cat in the world: the liger
While ligers are certainly something to admire, you’ll never find one outside of a zoo – they’re an artificial hybrid of a male lion and a tigress, something that would never occur in nature
Ligers look something like a striped lion
They tend to inherit brown fur from their lion fathers and dark stripes from their tigress mothers
As a result of this union between the tiger, the largest and heaviest cat, and the lion, the second largest, ligers tend to be much larger and heavier than their parents
In fact, the largest cat in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records is a liger named Hercules, who weighs 922 pounds and measures 11 feet in length and 4 feet at the shoulder
At 922 pounds (4182 kilograms) and 11 feet (333 meters) in length and 4 feet (125 meters) high at the shoulder, it is considered the largest living cat in the world
Photo by Ali West
Like many other unnatural hybrids, ligers often die in utero or prematurely
They also suffer from a variety of unpleasant genetic defects and diseases associated with lions and tigers, such as neurological problems, cancer, arthritis and organ failure
Photo: Hkandi
For these reasons, as well as their lack of conservation value and the threat to the mother tigress during childbirth, ligers are banned from most zoos and animal sanctuaries; And those who choose to breed animals are frowned upon by big cat conservationists around the world
Watch the video below to see a liger in action: The liger is just one of many surprising hybrid species
Click here to learn about 20 more amazing hybrid animals
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