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Lions and tigers and ligers, oh my! Your interest in curious cat hybrids was probably sparked by the film Napoleon Dynamite. Jon Heder, the actor who played Napoleon, studied animation in college and drew his own imaginary liger for the movie. We were amazed to learn that ligers do actually exist. So do tigons, lepons, and jaglions. Don't believe us? Check out the photographs at Lordstar's Lair. Big cats generally stick to their own so these amazing hybrids don't occur naturally in the wild. Rather they're the product of captive breeding programs.
They were much more common in the latter half of the 19th century, during the heyday of traveling circuses and sideshows. Technically, a liger is the offspring of a male lion and female tiger. They can weigh up to a 1,000 pounds and stretch 12 feet long. They can have both stripes and spots, and if the liger is male, even a small mane. How are ligers and such possible? Lions and tigers are very closely related. Much like leopards and panthers, they share the same genus -- Panthera -- meaning they have enough genetic material in common to make breeding possible.
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