Ligers And Tigons And Lepjags, Oh My!
Have been meaning to share this for some time. These are results of man's insatiable curiosity - experimental genetics full scale! Just imagine what this animal would be like fully grown. And despite being raised in captivity, it still IS a wild animal. Can't tamp down millions of years of animal instinct. If it decides to bite the hand that feeds it, there will be no mercy...
The article reads as follows:
He looks like something from the prehistoric age or a fantastic creation from Hollywood.
But Hercules is very much of flesh and blood - he proves it every time he opens his gigantic mouth to roar. Part lion, part tiger, he is not just a big cat but a huge one, standing 10ft tall on his back legs.
Called a liger, in reference to his crossbreed parentage, he is the largest of all the cat species. On a typical day he will devour 20lb of meat, usually beef or chicken, and is capable of eating 100lb at a single setting.
At just three years old, Hercules already weighs half a ton. When he is fully grown, he is expected to reach 12ft, and almost 90 tons.
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."
Hercules has the strength of a lion and the speed of a tiger, reaching 50mph. He will also grow a mane like his father, but just a small one, and sports his mother's tiger stripes on his huge body. And when he opens his fearsome mouth he can both roar like a lion and give a purr-like snort like his mother. Not only that, but he likes to swim, a feat unheard of among water-fearing lions.
In the wild it is virtually impossible for lions and tigers to mate. Not only are they enemies likely to kill one another, but most lions are in Africa and most tigers in Asia. But incredible though he is, Hercules is not unique. Ligers have been bred in captivity, deliberately and accidentally, since shortly before World War II. Today there are believed to be a handful of ligers around the world and a similar number of tigons, the product of a tiger father and lion mother. Tigons are smaller than ligers and take on more physical characteristics of the tiger.
There are hundreds of hybrids in the animal world, some common such as the mule - a cross between a female horse and a male donkey - and some more unusual, such as the labradoodle, a mix of labrador and poodle.
Other exotic hybrids include the zeedonk, a cross between a zebra and a donkey; the zorse or zebroid, a zebra/horse cross; and the beefalo, an American bison/ domestic cow cross.
Another rare creature is the wolphin, the offspring of a whale and a dolphin. Back in the big cat world zoos in Japan, Germany and Italy have bred leopons, a male leopard/lioness cross, while Salzburg Zoo in Austria has bred jaguar/leopard hybrids known as lepjags .
Who knows what other crossbreeds them mad scientists will be coming up with next...cobthon (cobra and python mix) anyone?
The article reads as follows:
He looks like something from the prehistoric age or a fantastic creation from Hollywood.
Hercules has the strength of a lion and the speed of a tiger, reaching 50mph. He will also grow a mane like his father, but just a small one, and sports his mother's tiger stripes on his huge body. And when he opens his fearsome mouth he can both roar like a lion and give a purr-like snort like his mother. Not only that, but he likes to swim, a feat unheard of among water-fearing lions.
In the wild it is virtually impossible for lions and tigers to mate. Not only are they enemies likely to kill one another, but most lions are in Africa and most tigers in Asia. But incredible though he is, Hercules is not unique. Ligers have been bred in captivity, deliberately and accidentally, since shortly before World War II. Today there are believed to be a handful of ligers around the world and a similar number of tigons, the product of a tiger father and lion mother. Tigons are smaller than ligers and take on more physical characteristics of the tiger.
There are hundreds of hybrids in the animal world, some common such as the mule - a cross between a female horse and a male donkey - and some more unusual, such as the labradoodle, a mix of labrador and poodle.
Other exotic hybrids include the zeedonk, a cross between a zebra and a donkey; the zorse or zebroid, a zebra/horse cross; and the beefalo, an American bison/ domestic cow cross.
Another rare creature is the wolphin, the offspring of a whale and a dolphin. Back in the big cat world zoos in Japan, Germany and Italy have bred leopons, a male leopard/lioness cross, while Salzburg Zoo in Austria has bred jaguar/leopard hybrids known as lepjags .
Who knows what other crossbreeds them mad scientists will be coming up with next...cobthon (cobra and python mix) anyone?
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