Well, I've told you everything I've got to tell about my flowers, nothing to compare with what you've got, of course, but I did see a liger today:
tigers-animal-actors.com
The people who have this web site put on a show at the Renaissance Faire. Outside the stage area is a large cylindrical cage with four young tigers, two Bengals, one white with dark stripes, and one white with red stripes (called golden tabby). There are only 17 red tabby tigers in the world. The show begins with four men on stage, one swinging a bull roarer, one playing deep notes on a digiridoo, and two playing big drums a la Micky Hart. They play for a while, and then the one swinging the bullroarer leaves to go get a cat, and a women who is almost as well-built as Rambi comes on the stage dressed in tiger-striped tights and a leather vest, and she is very busty. A girl wearing black tights and a black leather vest brings out a Bengal tiger kitten, just a month old. Then she takes him off, and someone brings in a two year old Bengal tiger. And the pretty lady gives him a bottle, which he sucks, making growly noises in his throat. Then the pretty lady's husband come out with a white tiger. He gets a bottle, too, and then he goes off stage. Someone brings on a leopard. And someone brings out a panther, which is really just a black leopard. The leopards go off stage, and then a large golden tabby tiger is brought on, and the man explains about golden tabby tigers. During the whole show, the man and the lady are explaining about the natural history of the big cats, and their environment, and how many are left in the world. Then the man explains that at his compound, he let the tigers and lions share living quarters, but he didn't know that a male tiger was getting extremely friendly with a lady lion, until she gave birth to ligers. The liger, Sudan is brought on, with the pretty lady riding on his back. Brown, but with some stripes, and his chin sticking out as a lion's does, but the rest of his face like a tiger's. At that point, having seen all the other cats, you realize how big that sucker really is. 900 pound pussy cat, and he doesn't actually look all that friendly. Nothing to keep the cats from jumping into the audience if they wanted to, except that they are led around with chains attached to their collars. The pretty lady goes up a ladder to a platform 9 feet up, and sits in a chair, and offers Sudan his bottle. He stretches up to get it, and he is quite long, as you can see in the picture. He drinks his bottle, and then he wants more, and he really doesn't want to leave. But they kinda pull on him, and he goes. Thank goodness. I don't want to see Sudan in a bad mood.
Then the show is over, but they bring out the golden tabby, and you can have your picture taken with him for $10. Chris and the boys did, they said his fur felt coarse, and he enjoyed being petted.
The man said that if it was a female tiger and a male lion, the offspring would be tiglons, and they would be dwarf, instead of giants. They are not sterile, they can reproduce, and the offspring of a liger and a lion is a li-li, and the offspring of a liger and a tiger is a ti-ti. |
