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Okay, I know everyone laughed in Napoleon Dynamite when he said his favorite animal was a liger, a cross between a lion and a tiger. Well, laugh no more. Ligers are apparently very real. Wikipedia (an online, user-created encyclopedia) has an entry about them, and here is what it says:

Liger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The liger is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. It looks like a giant lion, with diffused tiger stripes. Like tigers (and unlike lions), ligers like swimming.

Ligers exist due to human influence. In natural conditions tigers and lions do not inhabit the same territory so do not have the opportunity to form such a species cross. (Lions and tigers coexist in the wild today only in the Gir forest of India although their respective ranges used to intersect in Persia, China and perhaps also Beringia.) Lions and tigers also do not usually want to mate with each other.

Ligers grow much larger than tigers or lions. This is because female lions and male tigers transmit a growth-inhibiting gene to their descendants. Being the offspring of a male lion and female tiger, the liger does not have the growth-inhibiting gene and grows much more. They will grow constantly through their lifespan until their bodies cannot sustain their size anymore.

The liger featured in the photograph is called Hobbs and lives at Sierra Safari Zoo. He is the offspring of an African lion and a Bengal tigress. The staff say, “He roars like a lion and swims like a tiger. He’s definitely all cat. He likes to play, and for all his incredible bulk he moves just as silently as any other cat.” He is estimated to weigh about 450 kilograms, about twice the average for male Siberian tigers, the largest non-extinct naturally occurring member of family Felidae.

Most ligers are sterile; however, a few births have been recorded.

A cross between a male tiger and female lion is called a tigon.

Please note that it doesn’t make any mention about them being “bred for their skills in magic.” I found this picture of a 13 yr. old, 900 lb. liger in a Russian circus. I can see why they’d “pretty much” be Napoleon’s favorite animal.