Ligers and Taigons and... BEARS! Oh MY!

Today mom emailed me a photo of an animal called a "Liger", which is what's created when lions and tigers screw with nature by, well, screwing. The pics showed this ENORMOUS creature, like something out of prehistoric times (seriously, it's crazy big). It grows to be 10 feet long and 900 lbs and eats, like, a billion pounds of meat at a time... Ligers were mentioned in Napoleon Dynamite but since he asserts that they were bred for their skills in magic, I was pretty sure this thing was Photoshopped.

UNTIL I GOOGLED IT!

Holy crap, they're real! There are only about a dozen in the world and most of them are at some Siberian zoo. (Chernobyl! There's no other explaination for the size of this thing!) There's also something called a "Tigon" but I'm not sure what makes it different. (Lion mates with tiger = Ligon. Tiger mates with lion = Tigon. The fuck?) How have I lived 33 years on this planet and never heard of such a creature? I know there are animals that exist that I've never heard of -weird birds and squirrels and stuff - but they're really far away. But this thing... I mean, it's BIG! How has it hidden from me this long?

I'd link a picture but I still haven't figured out how to do it. Ted "Tech Support" Carter tried to tell me how but I'm visual. Unless you take my grubby little paws and push the keys for me, I don't get it. Until Gunderman gets back from Scotland, you'll just have to trust me about this.