are there such things as ligers and tigons?

Question

thank you very much

Answer 1

The word liger, documented as entering the English language in 1938, describes a real feline, the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. (The opposite case, the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion, is known as a tigon.)

Both ligers and tigons exist in captivity, and the pictures and description reproduced above do correspond to one such example of the former, a liger named Hercules who lives at the Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.) in Myrtle Beach, a wildlife education organization run by director Dr. Mahamayavi Bhagavan Antle.

As noted above (in text that seems to have been taken directly from a February 2005 Daily Mail article), Hercules was the result of an accident rather than deliberate breeding. He is three years old, stands 10 feet tall on his hind legs, and weighs about 1,000 lbs. (At maturity he is expected to reach 12 feet in length and weight about 1,250 lbs.) He eats about 20 lbs. of meat (beef or chicken) per day, and he can consume up to 100 lbs of food in one sitting.

(http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/liger.asp)

General information
A liger is the result of breeding a male lion with a female tiger. It has stripes and spots. The spots are inherited from the lion parent even though adult lions do not appear to be spotted.
The liger is a hybrid cat that inherits most of the strengths of both parent species and is larger than either. If you haven't seen a liger before, come visit Hobbs to get a look at the biggest cat you are ever likely to have seen. By way of size comparison, male Siberian tigers (the largest non-extinct naturally occurring member of the cat family, Felidea) average between 400 and 600 pounds. We estimate Hobbs to weigh about twice that.
All ligers are presumed to be born sterile. This is not unusual for hybrids. Mules are the result of breeding a horse with a donkey and are also presumed to be sterile, although there is an occasional, extremely rare, exception.
Hobbs: Hobbs, with a mane like a lion, the long body of a tiger, and more mass than either, is a striking animal. He exhibits traits of both parents, his mother was a Bengal tigress and his father an African lion. He roars like a lion and swims like a tiger. He's definitely all cat. He likes to play, and for all his incredible bulk he moves just as silently as any other cat.
A note about ligers and tigons: A cat born to a tiger father and a lion mother is known as a Tigon. Tigons are very similar to ligers in many ways, but are quite a bit different also. We know of at least one documented instance of a tigon being born fertile. The offspring was fathered by a tiger so it was called a ti-tigon. We have been presented with other examples of tigon/liger ofspring, including a very nice looking female tig-liger.

(http://www.sierrasafarizoo.com/animals/liger.htm)

Answer 2

YES, to Ligers. I have not heard of tigons. Ligers are a lion and tiger mixed, lion being the female (if I recall correctly) and I thought they were called tions, where it is a tiger and a lion mixed, tiger being the female (if I recall correctly), I have seen photos of them, but I have not seen them live. They are sterile and unable to breed. Such as a mule, which is the cross of a donkey and a horse. Most everyone else put the sire down as first, giving it its prefix. Anyway, good luck

Answer 3

Yes there are,
My good friend works with cats and actually explained this to me about a year ago. Ligers are female lions bred with male tigers and Tigons are female tigers bred with male lions. The female makes up the first part of the word. I thought it was kind of cool. But like mules (donkeys bred with horses) I think they are sterile. So you have to have full bred lions and tigers to creat tigons and ligers.....that was kind of confusing!!

But hey...if Napoleon thinks they're cool they must be real! :)

Answer 4

As others have said (and still others *refuse* to believe!! LOL!), yes, both of these animals do exist. The animals cross-breed in the wild on occasion, as noted in the Wikipedia article on them. Check the links for wonderful shots of the animals in question, followed by links to the articles themselves for their history and discovery information. Very informative and interesting!!

Answer 5

Only ligers. They are specifically bred for their skills in magic.

Answer 6

yes very much if u want i can show u pictures mail me ur address to [e-mail] or just do a google search ull get a good answer.

Answer 7

Yep- lion/tiger hybrids.
http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/ligers.html

Big, beautiful kitties!!!!

Answer 8

Help! Is this what yahoo answers has gone down to?

Answer 9

Yes...and baerz, too.

Answer 10

only in napoleon's head