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On a typical day he will devour 20lb of meat, usually beef or chicken, and is capable of eating 100lb at a single setting.
At just three years old, Hercules already weighs half a ton. When he is fully grown he is expected to reach 12ft, and almost 90 stone.
He is the accidental result of two amorous big cats living close together at the Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species, in Miami, Florida, and already dwarfs both his parents.
"Ligers are not something we planned on having," said institute owner Dr Bhagavan Antle.
"We have lions and tigers living together in large enclosures and at first we had no idea how well one of the lion boys was getting along with a tiger girl, then lo and behold we had a liger."
50mph runner
Hercules has the strength of a lion and the speed of a tiger, reaching 50mph.
He will also grow a mane like his father, but just a small one, and sports his mother's tiger stripes on his huge body. And when he opens his fearsome mouth he can both roar like a lion and give a purr-like snort like his mother.
Not only that, but he likes to swim, a feat unheard of among water-fearing lions.
In the wild it is virtually impossible for lions and tigers to mate. Not only are they enemies likely to kill one another, but most lions are in Africa and most tigers in Asia.
But incredible though he is, Hercules is not unique. Ligers have been bred in captivity, deliberately and accidentally, since shortly before World War II.
Today there are believed to be a handful of ligers around the world and a similar number of tigons, the product of a tiger father and lion mother.
Tigons are smaller than ligers and take on more physical characteristics of the tiger.
Famous cross-breeds
There are hundreds of hybrids in the animal world, some common such as the mule - a cross between a female horse and a male donkey - and some more unusual, such as the labradoodle, a mix of labrador and poodle.
Other exotic hybrids include the zeedonk, a cross between a zebra and a donkey; the zorse or zebroid, a zebra/horse cross; and the beefalo, an American bison/ domestic cow cross.
Another rare creature is the wolphin, the offspring of a whale and a dolphin.
Back in the big cat world zoos in Japan, Germany and Italy have bred leopons, a male leopard/lioness cross, while Salzburg Zoo in Austria has bred jaguar/leopard hybrids known as lepjags.
