Liminal Ligers

Ligers are a hybrid cross between a male lion and a tigress and are the largest cats in the world due to 'hybrid vigor' because they gain the strengths of both species.  Lions and tigers don't meet in the wild, so ligers are accidents of captivity.  Ligers have the blond coloring of the lion with the muted stripes of the tiger.  A liger named Hercules is in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the largest cat in the world, weighing in at 904 pounds.

Hercules

Ligers have a tiger's love of the water, but the sociability of a lion, unlike a tiger's normally solitary existence.  In a lion pride, the cubs eat last, while tigers save the best bits for their babies.  Ligers also let their cubs eat first.  Because of hybrid vigor ligers also have an excellent resistance to illness and disease.

While ligers are not considered 'zoologically significant' they might provide a window into possible evolutionary processes.  Ligers are not found in the wild, but there have been documented cases of other hybrids in the wild - a pizzly (grizzly bear father and polar bear mother) and blynxes (a bobcat/lynx hybrid), among others.

Hercules winters at Jungle Island in Miami and spends the rest of time touring and making appearances in various venues helping to bring attention to conservation issues.  He has three liger brothers - Vulcan, Zeus and Sinbad who live at Jungle Island and in South Carolina.  To learn more about them, click here.

Below are more pictures of the brothers - all courtesy of ligerliger.com.  Enjoy!

Vulcan

Zeus

Sinbad