The LIGER

Hercules The Liger with Ragani Ferrante from
T.I.G.E.R.S.(The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species )

The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion (Panthera leo) and a tigress (Panthera tigris), hence has parents with the same genus but of different species. It is distinct from the similar hybrid tiglon.
It is the largest of all cats and extant felines.

Ligers inherit characteristics from both species. Ligers enjoy swimming which is a characteristic of tigers and are very sociable like lions. However ligers may inherit health issues or behavioural issues due to conflicting inherited traits, but this depends on the mix of genes inherited. Ligers exist only in captivity because the parental species do not normally meet. None have been confirmed in the one region where both cats coexist (Gir Forest region, India). Ligers may grow to, or exceed, the size of the larger parent.

The history of ligers dates to at least the early 19th century in, India Asia. In 1799, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) made a colour plate of the offspring of a lion and a tiger.

In 1825, G.B. Whittaker made an engraving of liger cubs born in 1824. The parents and their three liger offspring are also depicted with their trainer in a 19th Century painting in the naïve style.

Two liger cubs which had been born in 1837 were exhibited to William IV and to his successor Victoria. On 14 December 1900 and on 31 May 1901, Carl Hagenbeck wrote to zoologist James Cossar Ewart with details and photographs of ligers born at the Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg in 1897.