Facts About Hybrid Animals: The Liger

When I wrote my past two articles on hybrid animals, the Savannah and the Beefalo, I had quite different feelings than when I began researching this one. I am not a biologist, though I can say messing around with mother nature has a scary Frankenstein feel to it. However, when researching the beefalo, I found these breeders to be very serious about the health and life of their livestock. They were better cared for than typical cattle. As for the Savannah, it appeared the same way. The breeders were very serious, and took extreme care with both taking care of them and follow up when one was adopted, making sure the home was right, and if not, giving the support needed to get them to a proper home. The story of the Liger is a very different, very sad one though. Please watch the video at the end to see the implications of this breed with your own two eyes.

Facts About Hybrid Animals-Definition of a Liger

A Liger is a cub born to a male lion and a female tiger. That is where the problem starts, birth. Due to the crossing of these breeds, the ligers are prone to gigantism. Because of this, the mother tigress oftentimes dies in childbirth.

Facts About Hybrid Animals-How the Liger has Come to be

Very rarely, but it does happen, this half lion, half tiger actually does exit accidentally in nature, and even in zoos by accident. When it happens in accredited zoos, it was simply because of the close quarters, and the staff believing these two species would not mate. One such "accident" resulted in one offspring named Hercules. This Liger is said to be in good health and has been featured in numerous shows and magazines. At three years old, he was 900 pounds. Because of natural selection, preservation of species, this is not the norm, but rather the anomaly. This hybrid when bred on purpose, is not done so by accredited zoos. This cross breeding, when on purpose, is typically done by circuses, sideshows, unaccredited zoos, and so called "sanctuaries". I was actually taken aback by a video I watched by the National Geographic acting as if this hybrid was no big deal. That particular video also compared quite different hybrid-that of the human and the chimpanzee.

Facts About Hybrid Animals-The Problems Faced by the Liger

Although Tigers and Lions do share some of the same characteristics, most are very conflicting. This leads to depression in these huge ligers. They are quite torn. They have the vocalizations of both the tiger and the lion. One species loves the water, the other has disdain for it. They don't quite fit in anywhere. Then of course there's the unique diet this hybrid needs to survive. This is both because of the gigantism and because of the mixing of half lion half tiger. It needs the nutritional needs of both. To give you an idea of size, these creatures are the same size as prehistoric American Lion. These poor creatures typically have a very short lifespan. Health problems range from cancer, arthritis and other painful ailments. The reason for this is the conflicting genes passed on from the mother tiger and the father lion.

Facts About Hybrid Animals-The Sad Ending of the Ligers Life

Nature does have it's own set of precautions though. Because of the conflicting genes, these Ligers are born sterile. So I guess that shows the only way they will exist is by repeating the process of hybrid over and over with more and more of these lovely lions, and beautiful tigers. This is unfortunate, as like I stated above this is typically done by sideshows and uninformed "breeders". When the zoos and these sideshows that do participate in this act of hybridism, they will typically work these ligers until death. Unless they grow too big first, in which case they put them down.

So in short, there are many things to consider in hybrids. There are very different reasons for hybrids, most not for the good of nature. There are some that do have good intent and care for their hybrid animals as their own children. Others are just money makers leading a sad life.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/2/l_052_02.html