Liger? Real or fake???

[mainbutter]

Yes and no. One of the crosses (can not recall which but I think it is the liger cross) results in an animal that can not regulate its growth. This is a result of inheritance of certain maternal factors. I am sure there is data on it somewhere

Yup. Ligers grow to extreme sizes because the growth inhibitor is passed to offspring by female lions and male tigers, so pure tigers get it and pure lions get it, but ligers(female tiger + male lion) apparently don't get it.

Tigons(female lion + male tiger) grow to "normal" adult large cat size(~500 lbs max?)

I don't really understand 100% how this works genetically, just what I've read.

"Hercules" is a Liger I think kept at a place in florida, and at just a few years old(3?) He broke 900 lbs, which is something like 150% the weight of an adult male lion. He was on Animal Planet a few weeks ago.

[pillowtalk6188]

yeah, holy cow, they are so fat!

i don't understand why someone would breed an animal that has a defect that can potentially shorten it's life.

[mainbutter]

most of the time it's unintentional.. let the animals get to each other for an instant and bam.. baby liger.

Hybrid cats were originally produced in captivity long ago, certainly nothing recent.

[dreese88]

There was an episode of "My super sweet 16" I saw a long time ago where the kid flew to a place in FL I believe and picked out a baby liger to borrow for his grand entrance...found out it was illegal in his state to have big cats not in cages and threw a hissy fit...kinda glad that spoiled brat finally didn't get something he wanted

[Purrrfect9]

The local Zoo I used to work at here had one...

It was a big mean bastard lol...

Alot more agressive than the reg. tigers they had, but very impressive animal and always a crowd pleaser.

Actually that's really rare for Ligers to be very aggressive. Like any of the "Giant" animals, they generally have a more gentle disposition. I'd much rather work with the bigger cats than the smaller any day. Small cats= vicious , because they have to be to survive in the wild.

[Purrrfect9]

Pssst....there are ALL white lions...no tiger stripes... but they're out there.

At the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas

[mainbutter]

Actually that's really rare for Ligers to be very aggressive. Like any of the "Giant" animals, they generally have a more gentle disposition. I'd much rather work with the bigger cats than the smaller any day. Small cats= vicious , because they have to be to survive in the wild.

I went to undergrad with a girl who went on to vet school.

She interned with a guy who worked with large cats.

He began working with large cats because after a number of years working with orangutans, he got fed up with just how dangerous the big males are

When an orang decides he wants to hurt/kill you, he knocks you down and rips off your kneecaps with his bare hands.. so he can take his time to go to work on you.

[Purrrfect9]

I went to undergrad with a girl who went on to vet school.

She interned with a guy who worked with large cats.

He began working with large cats because after a number of years working with orangutans, he got fed up with just how dangerous the big males are

When an orang decides he wants to hurt/kill you, he knocks you down and rips off your kneecaps with his bare hands.. so he can take his time to go to work on you.

Haha maybe I should rephrase what I said. ANY exotic animal (or animal in general) can harm/kill you... small cat's just seem to want to harm/kill you more often.

But I totally can understand why he'd want to move away from orangutans... that sounds painful...

[Adam_Wysocki]

If a liger was mean to you, you must not have any good skills. You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Ligers only like people who have great skills.

-adam

[simplechamp]

They had one at a small private zoo close by my hometown. I went to see it once. Then it mauled some people and they had to off it.