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ligers smell like butt LOL
[[Image:bertramliger.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A liger]]
The '''liger''' is a [[crossbreeding|cross]] (a hybrid) between a [[male]] [[lion]] and a [[female]] [[tiger]]. It is therefore a member of [[genus]] ''[[Panthera]]''. As is the case with all hybrid species, there is no scientific name assigned to this animal. A liger looks like a giant lion with diffused stripes. Like tigers (and unlike lions), ligers like swimming.
A cross between a male tiger and a female lion is called a [[tigon]].
Known ligers are [[human]] influenced, either by deliberate human intervention or by humans putting lions and tigers in enclosed spaces together. In natural conditions, tigers and lions generally do not inhabit the same territory; the two [[species]] used to coexist in the wild in India, but inhabited different regions. Today in India, lions exist only in the [[Gir Forest National Park |Gir]] forest. There have been no confirmed reports of natural interbreeding, though there are longstanding claims that this has happened.
According to "The Tiger, Symbol of Freedom" (Nicholas Courtney, editor): ''Rare reports have been made of tigresses mating with lions in the wild.''
==Large size==
[[Image:Ligertrainer.jpg|thumb|right|320|A liger and its trainer, October 2005.]]
Ligers grow much larger than tigers or lions. It is believed this is because female lions transmit a growth-inhibiting [[gene]] to their descendants to balance the growth-promoting gene transmitted by male lions. (This gene is due to competitive mating strategies in lions.) A male lion needs to be large to successfully defend the pride from other roaming male lions and pass on his genes; also, in prides with multiple male adult lions, a male's cubs need to be bigger than the competing males for the best chance of survival. Thus, his genes favor larger offspring. A lioness, however, will have up to 5 cubs, and a cub is typically one of many being cared for in a pride with many other lions. As such, it has a relatively high survival rate, and need not be huge as it will not need to look after itself very quickly. Smaller cubs are more easily cared for and fed and are less strain on the pride; hence, the inhibiting gene developed.
Male tigers do not compete for status and mates in the way lions do; a tigress only mates with one tiger when in season, so a tiger does not have the same genetic predisposition to produce large competing offspring. Also, a tigress typically has fewer cubs, and those have a much lower survival rate due to the tiger's solitary nature, so being large and growing quickly are an advantage; there is no need for a growth inhibitor. Being the offspring of a male lion and female tiger, the liger inherits the growth-promoting gene unfettered by a growth-inhibiting gene and typically grows larger than either animal; this is called [[growth dysplasia]]. Some male ligers grow sparse manes. <!--They will continue to grow during their [[life expectancy|lifespan]] until their bodies can no longer sustain their weight.-->
Because of the impossibility of a gene being inherited from only females, there is a competing hypothesis. This untested hypothesis holds that the lion's sperm is damaged somehow during fertilization and that a growth-inhibiting gene is typically destroyed. Female tigons and female ligers both possess a tiger X chromosome and a lion X chromosome, yet only the female ligers will grow large, which suggests that either something happens to alter the genes or the cause of the growth dysplasia lies at least partially outside of genetics.
Another possible hypothesis is that the growth dysplasia results from the interaction between lion genes and tiger womb environment. The tiger produces a hormone that sets the fetal liger on a pattern of growth that does not end throughout its life. The hormonal hypothesis is that the cause of the male liger's growth is its sterility — essentially, the male liger remains in the pre-pubertal growth phase. This is not upheld by behavioural evidence - despite being sterile, many male ligers become sexually mature and mate with females. <!--Hagenbeck --> In addition, female ligers also attain great size but are fertile.
==Vocalisation and behaviour==
Ligers may exhibit emotional or behavioural conflicts due to their mixed ancestry.
They inherit different or mixed vocabularies (tigers "chuff", lions roar). G Peters included several hybrids (liger, [[tigon]], [[leopon]], [[Panthera_hybrid#Liguar|liguar]]) in his "Comparative Investigation of Vocalisation in Several Felids" published in German in Spixiana-Supplement, 1978; (1): 1-206.
They may inherit conflicting behavioural traits from the parent species. Ligers may exhibit conflicts between the social habits of the lion and the solitary habits of the tiger. Their lion heritage wants them to form social groups, but their tiger heritage urges them to be intolerant of company. Opponents of deliberate hybridization say this causes confusion and depression for the animals, especially after sexual maturity. How much of their behaviour is due to conflicting instincts and how much is due to abnormal hormones or the stress of captive conditions is not fully known.
==Colours==
Ligers have a tiger-like striping pattern on a lion-like tawny background. In addition they may inherit rosettes from the lion parent (lion cubs are rosetted and some adults retain faint markings). These markings may be black, dark brown or sandy. The background colour may be correspondingly tawny, sandy or golden. In common with tigers, their underparts are paler. The actual pattern and colour depends on which subspecies the parents were and on the way in which the genes interact in the offspring.
[[White tigers]] have been crossed with lions to produce "white" (actually pale golden) ligers. In theory white tigers could be crossed with white lions to produce white, very pale or even stripeless ligers. A black liger would require both a [[melanistic]] tiger and a melanistic lion as parents. Very few melanistic tigers have ever been recorded, most being due to excessive markings (pseudo-melanism or [[abundism]]) rather than true melanism. No reports of black lions have ever been substantiated. The blue or [[Maltese tiger]] is now unlikely to exist, making gray or blue ligers an impossibility.
==Recent ligers==
===United States===
It was 1994 when Ariana, a female liger, was brought to the Wildlife Waystation for permanent sanctuary after her former owner, a private resident in Oregon, could no longer care for her. She was an Adult when she arrived.
Ariana came to the Wildlife Waystation at the same time as her close friend Sandora, a Bengal Tiger, who belonged to a friend of Ariana’s former owner.
She now shares a roomy enclosure with Sandora, and they seem to greatly enjoy each other's company. When Ariana isn't busy with one of her lengthy cat naps, she can usually be found batting around her toy ball in a high spirited game of big cat soccer (she has invented many goal posts around her enclosure). She is best known for her playful disposition and affectionate nature. (Source: [www.wildlifewaystation.org)]
Hercules, one of the most widely-publicized ligers in the world, can be found at [[Parrot Jungle Island]] in Miami, Florida. In 2005, Hercules was profiled on European news outlets as well as [[The Today Show]], Good Morning America, and [[CNN]]'s [[Anderson Cooper 360]] in the United States. Hercules and Parrot Jungle Island are owned by [http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/docbio.html Bhagavan Antle], a highly successful animal trainer of many exotic species for use in films, television, commercials, infotainment shows, as well as public displays such as [[Renaissance Faire|Renaissance Fairs]].
Antle also owns an adult liger named Sudan on display at The Preservation Station in Barefoot Landing, an outdoor mall in [[North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina]]. Sudan is the result of an accidental breeding at Antle's South Carolina compound. According to [http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/liger.html Antle's website], ''"We have lions and tigers living together in large enclosures. We had no idea how well one of the lion boys was getting along with a tiger girl."''
A liger named Hobbs lives at [[Sierra Safari Zoo]], Reno, Nevada, USA. He is the offspring of an [[Africa]]n lion and a [[Bengal Tiger|Bengal tigress]]. According to the zoo, ''"He roars like a lion and swims like a tiger. He's definitely all cat. He likes to play, and for all his incredible bulk he moves just as silently as any other cat"''. He is estimated to weigh about 450 [[kilogram]]s (approximately 1000 [[pound (mass)|pound]]s), about twice the average for male [[Siberian Tiger]]s, the largest non-[[extinct]], naturally-occurring member of family [[Felidae]].
[http://www.shambala.org/ Shambala Preserve], a not-for-profit big cat refuge in Acton, California, has a liger called Patrick who weighs an estimated 800 pounds (360 kg).[http://www.shambala.org/biographies/patrick.htm] He has a golden coat with slightly darker golden stripes and a modest mane that resembles an overdeveloped tiger ruff. Patrick was born in 1990 and lived at Deer Path Animal Haven, a roadside zoo in Illinois. When this closed in 1998, Patrick went to Shambala.
[http://www.animalsafari.com/ Wild Animal Safari] in Pine Mountain, Georgia, in the USA, has been breeding ligers since 2000. As of October 2005, they had several adult ligers.
A pair of private exhibitors doing business as the [http://www.domesticpanthera.com/index.htm Domestic Panthera Behavioral Research Programme] in the USA promote a large feline named Lady Kali as a ti-liger. At two years old she weighed 400 pounds (180 kg). Lady Kali has reportedly been exhibited as a roadside zoo attraction in various North Carolina locations from at least 1999 through 2004, and is apparently not part of any active breeding program despite the website's declared intent to create a fully domesticated ''Panthera'' breed.[http://cwapc.org/news/NewsDescription.asp?FileName=news_20041214.html] Her owners have USDA Class C exhibitor's licenses[http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ac/publications/AWR/9cfr1.1.txt] valid through most of 2006 [http://www.domesticpanthera.com/legalstuff.htm on display] at their website.
===Worldwide===
In September 1975, a tigress sharing a cage with a lion at a zoo in Osaka, Japan, gave birth to 3 cubs described as having tiger's heads and lion's bodies. Two died soon after birth and the third soon after the news reported.
A liger born in 2002 at Fuzhou, Fujian Province, lived for more than 100 days.
In 2005, two tigons and three ligers were bred at the Shenzhen safari park, in southern China (near Hong Kong).
In July 2004, a liger cub born in a wildlife park in Hainan, China died of respiratory failure 72 hours after birth. It had been born to the tigress "Huanhuan" and a lion called "Xiaoerhei". It was born underweight and its death was attributed to congenital respiratory failure. <!-- According to Hainan biologist Li Yuchun, only one out of 500,000 lion-tiger or tiger-lion cubs survive, due to differences in their chromosomes. --> Huanhuan had rejected the cub and it had been suckled by a domestic dog that had just whelped in the hope of getting colostrum. The zoo plans to breed further ligers.
On 6th December 2004, a Bengal tigress produced healthy liger cubs sired by an African lion. The Russian Information Agency Novosti claimed it to be the first liger ever produced from this combination (possibly the first in Russia). The parents lived in neighbouring caves in the Novosibirsk zoo and got accustomed to one another. The female liger cub was named Zita and resembles her tigress mother with clear tiger stripes, but has a lion's background colour and many leonine features. Her brother remains with his parents in another Siberian zoo.
In April 2005, a liger (erroneously called a tigron) called Samil was born at the Italian Circus in Vigo, northwestern Spain. Samil is a cross between a female tiger and a lion and therefore is a liger.
==Ligers in popular culture==
*The title character of the movie ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]'' declares ligers to be "pretty much" his favorite animal, and states that they are "bred for their skills in magic". [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374900/quotes] The liger he draws in the movie does not look like a real liger, rather resembling a [[manticore]]. A ramshackle roadside zoo near [[Preston, Idaho]], where the film is set, once housed a menagerie of lion-tiger hybrids as well as lions, tigers and wolves. In 1995, some of the animals escaped, prompting an area-wide search-and-destroy mission for the animals. [http://www.wolfcountry.com/Where_Wolves_Rescue/Ligertown.htm].
*Multiple [[mecha]] from the [[Zoids]] franchise (including [[manga]], [[anime]] and model kits) are classified as the Liger-type. The most well known examples are the [[Blade Liger]] and [[Liger Zero]].
*In [[Transformers Cybertron]], the character [[Leobreaker]] transforms into a lion. However, in the show's Japanese version, his alternate moder is called a liger, as evidenced by Japanese name, Liger Jack.
*[[Jushin Liger (anime)]] - a popular anime hero created by the legendary [[Go Nagai]].
*[[Jushin Liger]] - a [[Professional wrestling|professional wrestler]]
*In the [[anime]] and [[manga]] [[Duel Masters]], there is a card called 'Deathliger, Lion of Chaos'.
*The anime [[Dancougar]] includes a mecha called Land Liger the design of which is based on the animal.
*In the [[Marvel UK]] [[comic book]] series [[Warheads]], the leader of the mystical mercenaries called the Warheads is named Col. Tigon Liger.
*In Irvine Welsh's book Marabou Stork Nightmares, Roy sees a liger during one of his trips to the zoo.
*In the [[NES]] game [[Rygar (video game)|Rygar]], the final boss is a creature named Ligar [sic], who resembles an [[anthropomorphic]] lion.
== See also ==
{{wiktionary}}
*[[Growth dysplasia]]
*[[Tigon]]
*[[Maltese tiger]]
*[[Panthera hybrid]]
==External links==
* [http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/04/25/ligertosee.shtml Zita] on display at the Novosibirsk Zoo (Russia)
* [http://www.parrotjungle.com Home of Hercules the liger]
* [http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/liger.asp Hercules the Liger] at [[Snopes.com]]
* [http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/l/ligers.htm More pictures of Hercules]
* [http://www.sierrasafarizoo.com/animals/liger.htm Hobbs] at the Sierra Safari Zoo.
* [http://www.shambala.org/biographies/patrick.htm Patrick] at the Shambala Preserve
* [http://zoo-arche-noah.de/arche_noah_liger_1.htm Liger cubs] at Noah's Ark Zoo (German)
* [http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/crossesa.htm Hybrid Animals] at Amazing Animals
* Hybrid Big Cats, pages [http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-bigcats.html 1] and [http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hybrid-bigcats2.html 2]
* [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0804_050804_ligers.html Patrick the Liger] from [[National Geographic]]
* [http://www.liloia.com/images/liger.jpg A drawing of a liger] as seen in ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]''
[[Category:Panthera hybrids]]
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