Ligers and Tigons

Last night, Randy and I got even more philosophical than usual...

Randy: there are ligers & tiglons
Dina: tiglons makes no sense
Randy: liger has a lion father & the tiglon has a tiger father
Dina: no, cause tig-tiger, lon-?
Randy: tiglon is a real animal
Randy: though i wouldv’e called it a tion
Randy: it can be called either a tiglon or tigon
Dina: tigon works
Dina: beginning of tiger end of lion

But of course, at the time, I thought he was making it up. While Randy knows all sorts of obscure facts about things (he was the one who was disappointed when I knew the origin of the word "sideburns" because he had made a pact with himself that he'd marry the first girl he met who actually knew that), I really thought that this was just one of his made up things. Apparently, there are(!) Ligers and Tiglons (also Tigons). Well, what do you know?


I would also like to give National Geographic (only the Tiglon picture's not from there) an award for the two least likely paragraphs to be found together put together well:

Weighing in at about a thousand pounds (450 kilograms) each, they typically devour 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of raw meat in a meal.

"For the most part they're really laid back," said Jason Hutcherson, vice president of Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Georgia. "They like to swim and play in the water."