Hercules the Liger stands at over ten feet tall. The Liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion and a female tiger. (Click to enlarge images)
Hercules lives at the TIGERS animal sanctuary in Miami, Florida. He is three years old, stands 10 feet tall on his hind legs, and weighs about 1,000 lbs. (At maturity he is expected to reach 12 feet in length and weight about 1,250 lbs.) He eats about 20 lbs. of meat (beef or chicken) per day, and he can consume up to 100 lbs of food in one sitting.
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."
A liger resembles a lion with diffused stripes. They are the largest cats in the world, although the Siberian Tiger is the largest "pure" taxon. Ligers and tigers enjoy swimming, whereas lions do not. A similar hybrid, the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion is called a tigon.
Rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild. Such mating may have occurred when, in uncommon circumstances, tigers were forced into ranges inhabited by the Asiatic Lion. However, since the present-day ranges of wild lions and tigers no longer overlap, it is generally held that such a combination of species would occur very rarely.
See the video:
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."
A liger resembles a lion with diffused stripes. They are the largest cats in the world, although the Siberian Tiger is the largest "pure" taxon. Ligers and tigers enjoy swimming, whereas lions do not. A similar hybrid, the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion is called a tigon.
Rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild. Such mating may have occurred when, in uncommon circumstances, tigers were forced into ranges inhabited by the Asiatic Lion. However, since the present-day ranges of wild lions and tigers no longer overlap, it is generally held that such a combination of species would occur very rarely.
See the video:
