Talk:Liger

photoshop?

Is it just me, or is the top picture a glaringly obvious photoshop? The source reads 'own source', and there is evidence of heavyhanded use of the photoshop clone-tool. I don't think this is the best picture to be shown on an article for something that most people assume is a hoax, wouldn't you agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.103.80 (talk) 11:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not a photoshop as you can see in many youtube videos with the liger basically in the same position. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbbeto (talk • contribs) 02:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Belter?

The article starts calling them "Belters" after the intro. Is this intentional? Perhaps the change in terminology could be explained. Erik Carson (talk) 12:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

ligers

can ligers mate with other liger —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.76.123 (talk) 22:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Male ligers are always sterile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbbeto (talk • contribs) 22:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Superfluous citation needed

"Ligers exist only in captivity because the parental species do not normally meet[citation needed]. " How are you supposed to cite that? Tigers are Asian... lions are African. What is there to cite?

It was a slightly silly tag, but ideally the article would cite a source that explicitly says they don't meet in the wild, as it does now. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

(ps. Please put new comments at the bottom of the page.)

Species? No?

Would ligers have a species? (I don't know if they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, as goes the scientific definition.) If so, what is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.218.179 (talk) 04:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

No, ligers cannot mate with other ligers. Males are often completely sterile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.233.175.153 (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

What's this noise about Ladybugs?

Found this on the page as 2nd part of the opening paragraph: "Ligers eat grapes each and every day to ward off all the killer ladybugs that might attack them if they don't watch out." While that in and of itself is a fairly entertaining bit of nonsense, I've never heard of any poor liger getting brutally eaten to death by ladybird beetles that are probably more prone to go after the bugs living on the poor cat itself. Editing to remove the aforementioned sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.76.217 (talk) 04:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

please be careful

People, please:

• Watch grammar
• Watch spelling
• and be specific

I made too many changes here 71.125.5.51 (talk) 02:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This article contradicts itself

The article says males both do and don't reach sexual maturity. This should be cleaned-up; meanwhile the "unstable genes" info, where is it from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheResearchPersona (talk • contribs) 09:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the two contradictory statements, which stood out glaringly in the article: "Many male ligers become sexually mature and mate with females." "Male ligers never reach puberty. While they continue to age and grow they do not become sexually mature." Someone's going to have to find a credible source that resolves this contradiction before either one of these comments can stand in the article. zadignose (talk) 06:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Reference needed for weight/size of Hercules

What does it mean by bred for its skill in magic??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.115.189.164 (talk) 19:55, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I removed the Sierra Zoo reference, as the link was broken, and the site does not presently have any information on Hercules or ligers. zadignose (talk) 06:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

That would be a reference to the movie Napoleon Dynamite, in which the title character describes a liger as a cross between a lion and a tiger, bred for its skill in magic. Someonw was having fun with the posting apparently. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.131.11.16 (talk) 23:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Link on page takes you to this page???

Just thought I'd point out, the links to "ti-tigers" and "li-ligers" redirect to this page, so I removed them. They should be added back in when those articles are actually created. 81.158.141.26 (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

True Or False

Is this real or is it just a made up animal.KRSTIGER (talk) 13:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet have both aired shows about them. This happens in captivity, as in the wild Lion and Tiger territories don't overlap. http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/ligers.htm Munin and hugin (talk) 01:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Zoids Reference

The article mentions Ligers as a Zoid type, but that isn't exactly accurate. While I can't speak for the Japanese, all of the official English material that I've seen has Liger Zoids classified as lion types. As far as I can tell, Liger is just a common name shared by several different Zoid models, not an actual type. --TwilightDuality (talk) 06:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

speed

does this article mention anything about how fast they are?Ozsmith0 (talk) 18:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed from WP:Most vandalized pages

Hi, I've removed Liger from the above page as it's now semi-protected. If vandalism becomes a serious problem after the protection expires, please do not hesitate to re-add it. Hadrian89 (talk) 15:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

napoleon dynamite

why is there no "Pop Culture" napoleon dynamite reference? After all it is his favorite animal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.5.148.143 (talk) 09:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Also there is no reference to being bred for their skills in magic---209.104.231.194 (talk) 19:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• Feel free to add any worthwhile and notable content but be warned if its not of notable content and cannot be verified it will be deleted ZooPro (talk) 12:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Fertility

The fertility section of this article says:

The fertility of hybrid big cat females is well-documented across a number of different hybrids. This is in accordance with Haldane's rule: in hybrids of animals whose sex is determined by sex chromosomes, if one sex is absent, rare or sterile, it is the heterogametic sex (the one with two different sex chromosomes e.g. X and Y).

According to Wild Cats of the World (1975) by C. A. W. Guggisberg, ligers and tigons were long thought to be sterile: In 1943, however, a fifteen-year-old hybrid between a lion and an 'Island' tiger was successfully mated with a lion at the Munich Hellabrunn Zoo. The female cub, although of delicate health, was raised to adulthood. (source: Guggisberg, C. A. W. "Wild Cats of the World." (1975).)

My question is: what the hell is that first paragraph supposed to mean? I think it means that male ligers are sterile, but female ligers can have children (not with male ligers, of course, but with male lions). If that's what it means, then it should say that, plainly. But would someone confirm that? Also, can female ligers have children with male tigers? Or males of any other species? Maybe nobody knows yet, since they're so rare. - Shaheenjim (talk) 18:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

lions of India meeting the tigers of India in the wild

Do the asiatic lions ever meet the tigers of india in the wild? Perhaps in the past they did. The wikipedia article on asiatic lions suggests that the Caspian tigers may have come in contact with lions in the wild.Pnelnik (talk) 09:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• It is possible but would have been a very long time ago, am not %100 so i will have a look around and see if i can get some info and sources. Though should prob be listed on the Caspian Tiger or Asiatic Lion talk page instead of here. ZooPro (talk) 12:22, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No, they would not be naturally attracted to mate with each other. If it ever happened in the wild, it would have been a freak incident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.233.175.153 (talk) 18:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Who said anything about them mating??????? ZooPro 07:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

While their ranges overlap very little today, due to hunting and habitat destruction, lions and tigers shared a great deal of territory in the past. And I have no clue where to even start tracking down the reference, but quite some time ago, I read an account of an animal that was a dead ringer for a liger being shot in India during the British colonial period, so it may not be out of the question that wild ligers existed. Frankly, this whole article is a mess. For example, the liger is larger than its parents, not because of hybrid vigor (in which case tiglons would also be huge, and they're not) but because in lions, size is controlled by a growth-inhibiting gene transmitted by the female, but not the male, and therefore ligers lack it. I'd also like to see a citation on birth defects in ligers, and what's with "other mutations"? Unfortunately, I don't have time to fix it myself (or even log in). 66.92.68.103 (talk) 18:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I will do some more research and add specific information about the birth defects and mutations, also i will add the citations, they can be verified by Big Cat Rescue and National Geographic. Some ligers die very young, because the combined genes cause weaknesses. Ligers sometimes suffer from neurological disorders and 'head-shakes'. If I have time, I will find the mutation article too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.233.175.153 (talk) 00:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

While, it is possible that lions and tigers shared territories in India (Gir National Forest), it is still unlikely that they crossed paths because of their different preferences of habitat. ligers are mostly found by any different types of cats in a home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.159.154.106 (talk) 18:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tigon?

This article contains several references to "tigons." The more popularized name for the animal referred to is "tiglon." I was wondering if someone would consider revising these references to indicate as such? (as things stand, the "tigon" links lead to a disambiguation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.160.131.245 (talk) 14:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. There should only have been one link to Tiglon anyway, per WP:LINK. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:14, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

a list of zoos breeding ligers? by coutries?

anywhere available? if i'd like to see one -- want to know nearest zoo that has one or a couple :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.233.134.208 (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Male lion * ligress

The article says that female ligers are fertile. Since male lion * tigress is larger than either parent, it seems like male lion * ligress should also be, and might prove to set a new record for largest cat size. Does anyone know? Since ligers are so rare, maybe nobody knows yet. Stonemason89 (talk) 18:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it looks as if the liger's size record may have been broken already, or at least tied. According to the tiglon article, extremely rare hybrids between a female tiglon and a male lion have been produced, and these are known as litigons. The litigon is mentioned as weighing up to 800 lbs, which is larger than many (but not all) of the ligers mentioned in this article. I'm going to add a brief mention of litigons to this article, since they may be as large as, or larger than, ligers on average (no one knows, since they are so very rare). Stonemason89 (talk) 18:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Liger births hazardous?

The article makes no mention of the truth or falsehood of the assertion that liger births are hazardous for the tigress. Reference 1 (big cat rescue) claims that they are, but the tone of the site suggests a lack of objectivity. Anyone in a position to comment? Captain Pedant (talk) 21:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yikes; I just read that article too, and it's definitely not appropriate for use as a source; the tone of the article practically calls out FRINGE. I'm going to remove all occurrances of that citation from the article and replace them with CN tags. Stonemason89 (talk) 21:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the removal of that source was a good call. Do you think the {{cn}} after "the parental species do not overlap naturally in range." is necessary? As noted above it's easy to verify, though I've not found a credible source that states it explicitly. I couldn't find any credible info about liger birth hazards. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so; while there are lions in India, their range does not overlap with that of the tiger. I'm not sure if this has always been the case, though; the lion's natural range has shrunk greatly in the past millennium or so as a result of human activity. It's possible that sometime in the past, their ranges did overlap. I'm not sure if anyone knows. However, since the statement in question refers to the present day, and since that fact is easily verifiable, I don't think the cn is needed, so I will remove it. Stonemason89 (talk) 16:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Liger photos

these are many photos of the liger http://sena2zero.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/liger2.jpg http://sena2zero.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/liger2.jpg http://www.anonymousphilanthropist.com/jots/liger.jpg http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y106/KamHarrisPhoto/Miami/liger.jpg please respond or go to my user page