2 Comments so far

1. ! on July 6, 2009 3:04 AM

   The liger, as you seem to already know, is captive-bred hybrid. Since the match of the respective parental genes isn’t perfect, the animal in word is either blessed or cursed into growing abnormally large throughout its life. The American lion was also a huge feline, and it could easily stand five feet high at the shoulder, but similarly to the modern-day lion, it stopped its growth around the age of six or seven. This obviously favors the liger.
   Ligers can be as large as 800 pounds, and larger individuals have been recorded. Hercules, a famous tiger, which has been portrayed in many shows, is a huge male liger kept is a captive center in Miami, Florida. He was stated to be almost 900 lbs when he was just a young cub. Later, it was reported that Hercules had grown to 1,100 lbs. Since the liger is still young, strong, and healthy, it’s expected for him to become even larger, possible up to 1,400 pounds.
   Another liger, which lived a couple or so decades ago, entered the book of records, Guinness, as the largest cat in the world, in an all-time basis, with a body weight of over 1,700 lbs!
   So, I’d say liger would be larger, but one must keep in mind that features, including weight, vary greatly from one individual to the nest, therefore there would be plenty of overlapping.
   To respond your last question, if the largest of tigers was mated with largest of lions, we’d get the largest of ligers, which would, in my opinion, weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Scary!

2. Kristian C on July 6, 2009 3:31 AM

   The biggest cat is the Siberian Tiger…. But if we will include the hybrid cats, Liger is the biggest…