Creature Feature: Kimba!

Those of you who are old and/or nerdy enough may remember Osamu Tezuka's classic cartoon, Kimba the White Lion. (It's the same thing as Leo the Lion.)  Basically, the series was about a white lion cub who escaped from a poacher's ship, went back to Africa, and became king of the beasts. He proceeded to nudge everybody into getting along, even though, given the nature of some beasts, many of his solutions would never work. Hell, he even tried to patch up the human-animal rift. Yes, this is still the cartoon that people have accused Disney of basing The Lion King off of.




But surely a white lion like that would never survive, right? Yeah, it's still got teeth and claws, but white animals rarely make the cut in nature...



...except in this case. Not only do white lions exist, there is a whole population of white African lions.

First off, let me make a few things clear about lions in general:

1. Lions are primarily savannah hunters. Sure, the name card reads "King of the Jungle," but they're mostly in places with not a lot of trees. The females do the hunting, the males tend to sit there being fabulous.

2. Lions have harems. No matter how touching Simba and Nala were in The Lion King, Simba had hookers. Lions will kill the cubs of another male just to make sure their own young survive. Hell, I've heard of male lions killing their own cubs just to bring a lioness into heat again.

3. The only place lions and tigers have ever met in the wild would possibly be in India. Rule of thumb is lions = Africa, tigers = Asia. Europe also had lions at one point. Europe had a lot of cool things at one point.

That said, wild white lions are a morph of Krueger's lion, a subspecies of lion (Panthera leo krugeri) native to Timbavati, South Africa. They are usually found on reserves, but some wild specimens have been reported. Several zoos also boast white lions in their collection. Trust me, you'll know if your zoo has one; they usually put it on the news. 

The gene that creates white lions is, once again, the chinchilla mutation. I have heard so many things about this gene that I do not know what to believe anymore. Whatever it is, it's apparently the same 'white' gene found in tigers, meaning that it's either leucism or not quite albinism. Supposedly, this gene was proven to not be albinism in 1997, but even www.whitelions.org says that there are still some genetic uncertainties concerning these big cats. Nobody has yet attempted a white liger, but if they did, it would be interesting to see how the two genes intersected. 

White lions have a surprising range of shades. Their coats can range anywhere from very pale tan ("blond") to snow white. They can have eyes that are hazel, green, or blue. The most stunning specimens are, of course, pure white with blue eyes. This is uncommon in the wild, but can be bred in captivity.

Kimba was not available for comment.

Despite being a white morph of one of the world's most revered animals, none remain in the wild (outside of preserves). The first sighting of a white lion occurred in 1938. Since then, numerous specimens were taken to zoos and hunted because "DUDE it's a white lion!" The last wild (non-reserve) specimen was seen in 1994. They were doing just fine before their 'discovery' if ancient African folklore is anything to go by.

(Now I'm wondering: would any of you like a week's worth of "La Vie En Blanche?" There are so many awesome white animals out there. Some of them just look cool; others have cultural significance like the Shirohebi.)

"They Actually Eat That:" Tiger.

Tigers are one animal that I bet you thought that you would never see under "They Actually Eat That." Sure, it's easy enough to torment songbirds, make a soup out of duck's blood, use Rover as food, or shoot a kangaroo, but removing the Chinese king of beasts? That's almost blasphemy, isn't it?


Uuhhhh...remember this thing? The snake enshrined in booze?

For starters, humans will eat anything - and on "They Actually Eat That," we mean anything. Homo sapiens is an omnivorous species of ape that, when not given the proper mixed diet, goes insane. There is a disorder called pica that develops whenever people are sorely missing a needed nutrient. Eating anything we can is no longer just an option; it is a way of life.

That said, being an omnivore is just part of what makes humans a "broken" species. Unlike most animals, we tend to systematically eradicate things that we find threats or food. Hell, sometimes we don't even mean to do it - it happens because of little animals that we bring along. When we do mean to eliminate a species, it is because we have put two and two together and found a way to stop whatever is terrorizing us. (Making this worse is what I call the "OMG They Killed Kenny!" reaction - one human dies and everybody gets upset over it.) Humans are mean like that; such behavior is beyond self-defense.

Tigers, being large, threatening animals that can potentially eat people, are wiped out a lot. The Bali Tiger was eradicated not because it was awesome, but because it was seen as evil. The Javan tiger was killed off by a number of things, including general forest clearing and many of its prey species being threatened by disease and poisoning.  The Caspian tiger became extinct because the Russians just plain wanted it dead [insert "Soviet Russia" joke here]. Point is, we know how to kill tigers and are very, very good at it.


In Soviet Russia, tiger kills...no, wait. No it doesn't.

 What the hell made you think we wouldn't try eating big, bad tigers, just to prove that we really are the "1337 H4XX0rz" of nature?

They Actually Eat That?! 

China is big on eating and drinking tigers. Surprise, surprise.

In China, the tiger is king. Their symbol for 'king' is derived from the forehead marking of a tiger. There are no lions in China, so they made the tiger the ruler of everything with fur. A white tiger ("Bai Hu" or "Byakko") is the ruler of the Western quarter of the Chinese sky. It is also the sign in the Zodiac most likely to 'rise to the top,' so to speak, and is considered one of the most masculine animals out there.

This symbolic potency means that they are used for...everything that you would not use a dead tiger for. Their pelts are burned to keep centipedes out of the house. Their blood is used as a general "good health" tonic. The bones cure almost anything you can think of, including burns and malaria. The genitals, welllll...


You're gonna cut off my WHAT for WHAAAT?! 

Yes, they eat tiger penis as an aphrodisiac. If you see "Tiagra" appearing at your local organic health food store, stay faaaar away.

Before you all say how horrible this is already, China has over 6,000 (often abused) tigers in captivity thanks to the popularity of tiger medicine. After banning the trade of those magical tiger bones, tiger breeders are trying a new tactic: tiger bone wine. Apparently you can sell bones in wine but not by themselves. Oh, Chinese laws. 

This farming does, however, have an up-side. The Scimitar-Horned Oryx had a similar situation; its population is now limited to game reserves, but they're alive. At least if the wild tigers go extinct, there will be tigers left to replenish the Asian jungles. It is not a good situation, but it could be a lot worse.


I love you. Now stop eating my organs.

Creature Feature: Ligers.

No, these big cat crosses were not bred for their skills in magic as Napoleon Dynamite would suggest. The liger is a real creature with a lion (Panthera leo) father and tigress (Panthera tigris) mother. The opposite combination, a tiglon, rarely lives past birth. Both of these hybrids are fertile. The two species would never meet or mate in the wild, but in captivity, accidents happen.

Normally, lions and tigers are kept separately. Since ligers like Hercules have become huge (seriously!) draws, however, more zoos have deliberately crossed the two. If reptile breeders cross giant snakes for the hell of it, why not do the same for giant cats?


Pictured: SCIENCE. No booze involved.

A pairing between a lion and a tiger results in the biggest of the big cats known to mankind. Ligers can get up to 900 pounds and, when standing on their hind legs, reach up to 12 feet in height. This is, at least partially, because lionesses have a growth-inhibiting gene. No lioness in there means that the liger is one big kitty.



Don't try this at home. As the video says, big cats need a lot of food, and there are already a fair amount of homeless Panthera specimens. Let the big cats stay with people who are licensed to handle them. (No, I do not know how one gets 'started' with big cats...but it probably involves working at a zoo.)


You can, however, get a robotic liger with absolutely no prior training. Just like kids in Japan!