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Walking the largest cat in the world, comparable to a saber-toothed tiger
This 705-pound (320 kg) liger named Apollo, one of the world’s first white ligers, has been compared to a prehistoric saber-toothed tiger, and rightly so.
Image credit: The Real Tarzaп/Kody Aпtle
Apollo is the hybrid offspring of a male lion and a tigress, hence the name liger. Ligers differ from tigers, which are born from a female lion and a male tiger, in that they tended to grow much larger than either of their parent species. So much bigger that the biggest cats in the world are all ligers.
The history of lion-tiger hybrids dates back to at least the early 19th century in Iпdia. Since they live separately in the wild, they are only found in captivity. Currently, there are believed to be fewer than 1,000 ligers in the world.
Image credit: LigerWorld
Even among ligers, Apollo is a rarity. He and his three brothers are the world’s first white ligers, born to a white male lion and a white tigress in December 2013.
At that time, Apollo was the smallest of the four and, according to his owners, he behaved more like a kitten, eating and demanding to be petted all the time. But look what it has become. In this video, animal conservationists Mike Holstop and Kody Atle take Apollo for a walk around Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, putting into perspective how big he really is.
Some have compared Apollo to the largest species of prehistoric saber-toothed tiger, which weighed up to 400 kg (880 lb). But you still haven’t seen his uncle Hercules, who is actually even bigger than that. According to the Gυiппess Book of Records, Hercules holds the record for the largest living cat with a weight of 922 pounds (418.2 kg) and a height of 11 feet (3.35 meters) when standing on its hind legs. He consumes about 30 pounds (13.6 kg) of meat every day, washed down with about a gallon of water. Like Apollo, he also lives at Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina.
Image credit: Myrtle Beach Safari.
Now that’s a big cat!
Fuentes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
