We all know that cats are lovely, adorable pets. They exist in almost every country in the world. But my topic today is not about them pets. It is about the 'Beasts'. Those awesome predators living in the wild.
Cats in the wild are well known around the world. The King of the Jungle; lions, fastest animal in the world;cheetahs and famous legends of man-eating tigers. But ever wondered who remains the mightier of all them cats? Lions? tigers? Pumas?
No. The answer is ligers.
Ligers, believed to represent the largest cats in the world, are the offspring when a lion crosses with a tigress. They are believed to inherit characteristics from both parents, thus making them noticeably more powerful than either of them.
Reports suggest that lions and tigers do not usually reside within the same territory. Thus, ligers do not occur in the wild very much often. They occur more in captivity, mostly by accident.
Characteristics:
Ligers have been observed and witnessed to be larger than even lions. Despite that, they do not get the mane of the lion; the few that gets it, only achieve about half the size of the complete mane(Mane is the big hair 'necklace' found around necks of lions). They have pale stripes of tigers with usually sandy or golden background of lions, and their underpants(parts under their belly), are pale like those of tigers.
Ligers enjoy swimming. Some ligers are known to live for more than 20 years of age, with one reported to die at the age of 24. Their's is a species where males are sterile, though females are sometimes fertile. it depends on the sub-species of the parents.
The above is the biggest Liger known in the world currently(thus the largest living cat), Hercules, alongside his trainer. It is reported to be over 410 kg and is expected to live a long life.
