Monday, July 14, 2008


AWWWWWWWWWWWW!

One of the cutey-pie, feel-good stories of the day -

In the zoo in Amsterdam, a newborn red panda was rejected by its mother, but has been adopted by a cat which is nursing the little panda along with her litter of four kittens. The baby is tiny, as red pandas are considerably smaller than black and white pandas. Anyway, isn't that sweet?

I thought so!

8 comments:

Lynx217 said...

I saw that a couple days ago on Reuters I think, and I had the same reaction. But let's see if it lasts when that cat realizes it's not a kitten rofl... but I don't think mama cat will care :) My bf had a huge dog that had a tiny little kitten as a best buddy and trust me, that cat was the most protected animal in the world. Animals can be just as caring and sympathetic, and I do think they know what they're doing. It makes us humans wonder why we can't be the same way, doesn't it?
Thanks for sharing the story and pic. Hopefully it'll brighten even more peoples' days like it did mine even though I already knew of it :)

g bro said...

Oh, stop it! You know I mist up at stuff like this. Every cross-species nurture story gets me all mushy. Crows feeding kittens, momma dogs nursing piglets, all that stuff. That's going to be one little confused panda someday.

phlegmfatale said...

lynx217 - I admit I sorta had a Rodney King-style cant-we-all-just-git-along moment when I saw that.

g bro - I love it when you're misty. I don't know about that panda being confused. One day, he'll be be-bopping along, thinking he's a domestic kitty, and the next day a little red panda girl will come sashaying along and her pheremones will remind him what he is. It'll all work out in the end.

none said...

I wonder if when the panda grows are they going to move it to a bigger cat?

J.R.Shirley said...

This is a red panda, not a great panda.
Great panda: http://nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/WebCamp/wc96/nf/main.html
Red panda attack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=occw-8sSao4
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AsiaTrail/RedPanda/factsheet.cfm

Almost makes me want to like a cat. Odd. ;-)

Catmoves said...

Mama cats seem to have an affinity for nursing that transcends biology. So much for Darwin.
Had a female with a litter who allowed a Basenji pup to nurse at her nipples. Now there was a sight. Pup tried his best to imitate meows. And he absolutely adored his mom and litter mates.

Anonymous said...

Phlegmmy darling! I am back after a nasty absince....please hit up the email link on my page so I am able to invite you to my unfortunately now private blog!

FHB said...

Cool. You ever see the one where the tiger nursed the little pigs. The tigers cubs died so they skinned(!) the cubs and put the hides on the pigs. next thing you know the tiger is nursing them and she accepts them to the point where they are able to take the hides off. Nature vs. nurture eh?