No, this is not a Photoshopped image. Meet Hercules, a liger. He is the love child of a lion dad and a tiger mom who shared an enclosure at the Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species in Miami, Florida.
Hercules stands 10 feet tall on his hind legs and is still growing. At three years, he weighs half a ton and eats up to 100 pounds of meat per day.
In the wild, lions and tigers are natural enemies, but captivity makes strange bedfellows. There are a handful of ligers around the world, bred either accidentally like Hercules, or deliberately.
There are also a few tigons, the result of a tiger father and lion mother. Tigons are smaller than ligers and look more like tigers.
I have never had a liger or a tigon. This grave deficiency must be remedied immediately. Honey, can we get one? Pleeeease? I promise I'll take care of it, you won't have to do a thing.....
