Wild lioness nursing leopard cub - A very rare sighting

[Charan Singh]

(07-15-2017, 03:43 PM)sanjay Wrote: I think it is second case of cub adoption from other species by a lioness ? If you remember a lioness who adopted baby antelope ?

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If said leopard cub has survived, it can proudly say that "Maine sherni kya doodh piya hai!" - "Lioness has nursed me milk!"

As for the lioness nursing the antelope kid, I had seen this documentary a long time back and, behavior of the lioness was confusing for experts.
Also the situation was ambiguous in nature - we, humans, are sentimental and wish to see the soft emotions like motherly care for antelope kid by lioness even if it wasn't there.

But there evidence in the above case:
1) No attempts to kill or eat the antelope kid by lioness.
2) Lioness kept hanging around the kid for days (15 days, if I remember correctly), didn't allow the kid to wonder far from itself (no creasing seen tough - a familiar behaviour of lions)
3) Lioness wasn't with any pride (probably her pride was killed or something) and being social animals after days of loneliness lioness found emotional support.
4) Lioness was around 3-4 years and was sexually mature, had she been part of any pride she would have been become a mother herself.

What happened after those 15 days isn't clear but lioness was alone and it is believed that antelope kid died either because of starvation or got hunted by other animals like hyenas as lioness was vulnerable to attacks herself she couldn't defend the easy target. Reply