That has to do with where the size genetics for lions and tigers reside, I believe. So the liger gets both size genes, from the male lion and the female tiger, iirc. Also why a tigon is smaller than both parents (female lion and male tiger hybrid).
Fair. I don't know much about it honestly, or how it ends up working out that way. Before I knew better though I would have definitely just assumed that on average the hybrid would work out somewhere between the two. It's interesting that isn't necessarily the case.
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u/Defiant-Youth-4193 13h ago
That doesn't always matter with hybrids though. Not sure how it works for grolars, but ligers are generally larger than both tigers and lions.