Ligers — Check The Size of These Animals!!

Writing about web page http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/liger.html#liger

I just found out about these Ligers - they’re freaking huuuuge!! Apparently, they can grow up to 12 feet high (standing on their hind legs) and weigh 1000 pounds (about 450 kilograms). Now that’s one cat I don’t wanna mess with!

Where Ligers are the product between a male Lion and a female Tiger, their counterparts are called Tigons, i.e. male Tiger with female Lion. These Tigons however are nowhere near as big as Ligers. In fact, Tigons are usually smaller than either parents.

This is because a female Lion and a male Tiger contribute growth-inhibiting genes to their descendats, while male Lion and female Tiger contribute growth-promoting ones.

Under normal circumstances, a pure-breed Lion/Tiger are limited in growth. However, a Liger only gets the growth-promoting genes without the growth-inhibiting ones, and therefore will continue to grow forever (theoretically). On the opposite side, a Tigon inherits growth-inhibiting genes from both its parents without any growth-promoting ones, i.e. they become much smaller than their parents and their distant “cousins.”

Imagine having one of these in your homes.. forget guard dogs, get a guard Liger!

: 15 Aug 2005 20:04 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem