Hercules and Dr Bhagavan (Photo credit: Acarvin)
What do you do with a 900-pound, 6-foot-tall and 12-foot-long cat? Whatever it wants!
In this case, the cat in question is Hercules, a liger who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest cat. A liger is born from a lion father and a tiger mother and Hercules breaks assumptions that hybrid animals usually become sickly or unhealthy.
Aside from the sharp teeth and claws, Hercules can run of up to 50mph and eat 100 pounds of food in one go. So you can imagine what a fearful sight like that would be for people in the streets of London in England.
This is why photographers decided to recreate a mockup of familiar sites like Abbey Road and the London Underground station instead. All of the shots were taken at the Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Dr. Bhagavan ‘Doc’ Antle said, “Hercules is a prime example of hybrid vigour, which he gets from his lion father and his tigress mother.” The doctor, founder of The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (TIGERS) in South Carolina, had brought up eight-year old Hercules since birth.
“As a mixture of the world’s largest two big cats, Hercules is an impressive specimen and a pretty well balanced and relaxed guy too,” he said
To show the strength and size of Hercules, the photographers had him hanging around certain iconic locations that are supposed to represent London. These include having lunch at the top of a 1967 double-decker bus, posing beside a London Underground station or a black cab, or even bumming around Abbey Road (sans the Beatles crossing the pedestrian lane).
‘This excursion demonstrates the sheer size and power of Hercules as he walks past some of the most recognizable landmarks in the world,’ said Dr. Bhagavan.
He pointed out, “Most people are aware in their everyday lives of the size of a double-decker bus and they know how large that is. Now they can see that Hercules is larger than the black cab and can easily stretch his way to the top of a London bus.”
How big is he really? Because of Hercules’ size, he has his own page in the Guinness Book of World Records. Dr. Bhagavan said, “People ask me if Hercules is the “largest” big cat in the world and my response to that is always that he has an entire section in the book of records.”
“There have been fat cats and unhealthy looking cats, but Hercules is an exceptional specimen and you just have to look at him and this photo-shoot to appreciate his physique,” he noted.
He said, “One thing I have always thought when I look at Hercules and indeed all big cats is that to look into their eyes is to look into God’s own eyes.” (Joseph N)
Source: Oddity Central, Daily Mail
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