Lion plus Tiger equals Liger

The liger is a cat born from the breeding of a male lion and a female tiger. Both are the members of genus Panthera. Ligers inherit characteristics from both the species. They have a tiger-like striping pattern on a lion-like tawny background. They enjoy swimming which is a characteristic of tigers and are very sociable like lions. They usually chuff like a tiger and roar like a lion, but without giving the typical lion grunt at the end. Their vocabulary is made up both of lion and tiger sounds.

The liger is the largest known big cat in the world and is far larger than lions. Male ligers are bigger than either parent, 10 to 12 ft in length, making them the biggest hybrid cat and can weigh approximately 450kg (990 lb). Female ligers may also attain great size, weighing approximately 320 kg (705 lb) and reaching 10 ft long on average, and are often fertile. No fertile male ligers have yet been found and it is assumed all are sterile. This is not the case with females and a 15-year-old ligress at Munich Zoo produced a li-liger after mating with a lion. A liger can have a long life. Shasta, a ligress (female liger) was born at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City on May 14, 1948 and died in 1972 at the age of 24.



Hercules is the largest liger living on the Earth, weighing over 410 kg (904 lb). Hercules seems completely healthy and is expected to live a long life. Hercules, the liger is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest big cat.'Hercules is a prime example of hybrid vigour, which he gets from his lion father and his tigress mother,' said Dr Bhagavan 'Doc' Antle, the founder of The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (TIGERS) in South Carolina, who has brought up eight-year old Hercules since birth.'The social side of his personality of course is inherited from his father and the pensive, observant nature is inherited from his mother.'As a mixture of the world's largest two big cats, Hercules is an impressive specimen and a pretty well balanced and relaxed guy too.'

Baby ligers born in Taiwan on 15 August , 2010.

On Sunday 15th August, 2010, three liger cubs were born in Taiwan. Out of the three liger cubs, two of the cubs survived. The cubs are the offspring of an African lion named Simba and a Bengal tigress named Beauty, kept in the same cage for the last six years at the World Snake King Education Farm in Taiwan.