Beware the Liger

[Twitchy]

I was wandering around the National Geographic website, and came across this article. Apparently there are lion-tiger hybrids, known as ligers or tigons! I hadn't heard of them before... they look really amazing.


(there's also a good Wikipedia article about them)

It really makes your mind boggle with ideas of hybrid animals... what do you think? Or is it just wrong?

I think it'd be great if my rabbit and guinea pig had offspring. Not very exotic, perhaps, but cute! (little hopping furballs)

cool! he looks like a lion with tiger stripes.</pointingouttheobvious>

[Fiddelysquat]

Deb: What are you drawing?
Napoleon: A liger.
Deb: What is a liger?
Napoleon: It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed - bred for its skills in magic.

[ChromeFox]

Here's an old female tigon. Creepy, innit?



A Wolphin (Killer Whale/Bottlenosed Dolphin hybrid)



A Servical kitten (sheesh, what a name...Serval/Caracal hybrid). Innit CUTE?



A Beefalo (Cattle/Buffalo hybrid)



Chausie Cats (what happens when you make the mistake of breeding jungle cats with domestic ones...these two look like they've taken over the bathroom)



A Cama (Llama/Camel hybrid)



Here's another picture of a liger to show how huge they can get. In tigers, the father contributes the genes that limit growth; in lions, it's the mother. When you have a female tiger and a male lion, there's no growth-limiting gene, so ligers never stop growing their entire lives!



There's more here...

http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/crossesa.htm

[.:Requiem:.]

Yup. We stuidied hybrids in science last year, so...yeh.

[(*Dranzer*)]

Here's another picture of a liger to show how huge they can get. In tigers, the father contributes the genes that limit growth; in lions, it's the mother. When you have a female tiger and a male lion, there's no growth-limiting gene, so ligers never stop growing their entire lives!



There's more here...

http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/crossesa.htm

Wouldn't the situation have to be set up as tiger mother, lion father for that?

*Imagines twice the amount of growth limit genes*

Cuuuute midget ligers!

You gotta love Zoids

[Runevalkyrie]

Chrome -- you forgot the Zonkey (zebra/donkey hybrid)
http://www.livescience.com/images/050429_zonkey_02.jpg

[ChromeFox]

Here's another picture of a liger to show how huge they can get. In tigers, the father contributes the genes that limit growth; in lions, it's the mother. When you have a female tiger and a male lion, there's no growth-limiting gene, so ligers never stop growing their entire lives!

Wouldn't the situation have to be set up as tiger mother, lion father for that?

Right. That's what I said.

And I didn't forget the zonkey, but that picture is much cuter than the one I found.

[(*Dranzer*)]

Whoops, Sorry about that.

[mazil]

Wow, those pics look really cool, ChromeFox! Yeah, apparently hybrids have a tendancy towards "giganticism". That makes me slightly uneasy, since it shows something isn't quite right... but some of them do look very beautiful

I'm surprised I hadn't heard of a liger before, and a lot of you seem to! Are they more common in the US, maybe?

[AFI_Sorrow]

A Servical kitten (sheesh, what a name...Serval/Caracal hybrid). Innit CUTE?

Awwww...it's so cute and fluffy! XD

Hybrids are pretty cool. I wonder if they can make a hybrid of something so completely random, like a kangaroo and a dog.

[.:Requiem:.]

A Servical kitten (sheesh, what a name...Serval/Caracal hybrid). Innit CUTE?

Awwww...it's so cute and fluffy! XD

Hybrids are pretty cool. I wonder if they can make a hybrid of something so completely random, like a kangaroo and a dog.

That would be....impossible. They have to be practically the same species to breed. 'Roos and dogs are...not even close.

[mazil]

That would be....impossible. They have to be practically the same species to breed. 'Roos and dogs are...not even close.

Yeah, I think they have to have the same number of chromosomes, at least! And even when different species can breed, their offspring are often infertile (so that puts an end to that).

With genetic engineering, however, almost anything could be possible...

[.:Requiem:.]

Yeah, they're usually sterile. And they have to be in the same...why do I want to say phylum? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's not it. They have to be...REALLY close, anyways. And it's way hard to do. ...If I still had my science notes (meaning if I would bother to go GET my science notes) I'd know...

[AFI_Sorrow]

That would be....impossible. They have to be practically the same species to breed. 'Roos and dogs are...not even close.

Yeah, I think they have to have the same number of chromosomes, at least! And even when different species can breed, their offspring are often infertile (so that puts an end to that).

With genetic engineering, however, almost anything could be possible...

Awww, well darn. I kind of figured it was impossible because of chromosones and whatnot....but hey. *If* it could be done, it would be interesting.

[Asthaloth]

never heard of Ligers before?
if one has a cub with another tiger, then the offspring is called a... tigtig.
(you think im kidding dontchaya? poor thing, so ugly and such a stupid name)

Pandafent is still cooler though.

edit: yeah, Ligers are rather popular in some RPG's, though not for magical skills (more like chop em up and stick em in your ritual of watsithujit)