Liger

The liger is probably the most famous animal hybrid. This awesome cat has a lion father and a tiger mother, creating the colossus known as the liger. There are legends of wild ligers in ages past when the Asiatic lion shared the same territory as the tiger, but, today, ligers are only found in captivity. The liger was first bred in India by the British, who gave a pair of liger cubs to Queen Victoria. They soon realized that the liger was the true king of beasts – they can be 11 feet long and weigh 800 pounds. (The largest liger in the world is an awe-inspiring 900 pounds, the perfectly healthy Hercules!) Ligers are so large because they don’t inherit a certain gene from female lions that restricts their growth. Instead, ligers share characteristics from both their impressive parents: they are friendly, social animals like their lion fathers, but with a fondness for water and the stripes of their tiger mothers. The true king of the wild! Unlike many hybrids, female ligers can also successfully have families of their own with lots of adorable little cubs!