HERE,KITTYKITTY!?!
"IBen Getiner" wrote in message
ups.com...
The biggest 'kitty' you'll ever see..! The 10ft Liger who's still
growing...

Daily Mail 09:12am 16th February 2005 Very big cat: Hercules at his
Miami home. Click photo to enlarge.


http://blogs.indiewire.com/rabbi/archives/hurcules.jpg


He looks like something from a prehistoric age or a fantastic creation
from Hollywood. But Hercules is very much living flesh and blood - as
he proves 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
stone. He is the accidental result of two amorous 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." 50mph
runner 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. Famous cross-breeds 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. This story first appeared in the . For more great stories like
this, buy the Daily Mail every day.







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