so the best thing about this is that bobcats, like just about every feline besides lions and domestic cats, are pretty solitary. they don’t really have friends. they aren’t really equipped to make friends.
domestic cats, on the other hand, do know how to make friends. they are friendly to the point that lots of feral cats live in colonies— the females hang out together, even raise kids together, and the males like to spend nonsexual time with their baby mommas. they groom each other, play around, and have a particular tail position to signal to one another— straight up with the tip curled— that they’re friendly and happy to see each other. cats learned how to be chill with each other in order to take full advantage of human food sources: an ancient granary supplies enough rats for a lot of cats, as does a modern lady with a big bag of frisky bits, so it would be a waste of time and energy for any one cat to try and stake the entire foodsource out for exclusive use. less fighting means more eating and resting which means a longer, nicer life and a lot more kittens.
so this stray cat, she obviously has no colony if she’s wandering around and sneaking into zoo enclosures, so she’s like ‘hey! there’s food here! what up, other cat, let’s be friends, let’s be friends and share that food’. and the bobcat is like ‘??????’ because actually wild cats are pretty cautious about initiating hostilities and anything new and aggressive makes them very worried. and the domestic cat is like ‘haha cool, ok, we’re friends now, big guy. no problems.’ and the bobcat is like ‘????? well…?? ok?’ and then they are friends.
the super interesting thing about most wild cat species is they don’t really have the capacity to make friends on their own, especially outside of sibling bonds, but, if someone comes along and does all the friend-making themselves, they’ll totally roll with it. zoo cats can get really attached to their caregivers— or, in this case, a very confident little calico demonstrating exactly why her species has been so darn successful over the last nine thousand years .
so anyway that is the best thing: bobcats are not equipped to make friends, but luckily for this bobcat this homeless lady did not give any shits and made friends anyway. and now they are both happy.
i was telling my sister the thing about how cats that don’t grow up around humans only meow when they’re kittens, but housecats retain the habit of meowing to communicate with humans bc we don’t get the other signals that cats use to communicate, and she was like “so basically cats are always speaking baby language with us. they’re like, let me put this very simply so you’ll understand. basically they’re incredibly condescending”
I read an article where some expert said that they view us as very large, very stupid kittens.
A Russian zoo is home to a unique animal – the liger. It is half-lioness, half-tiger. Mother Zita is pictured licking her one month old liliger cub
I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU CALL IT LOOK AT HER HAPPY LITTLE FACE IN THE LAST PICTURES SHE’S SO PROUD OF HER LIL CUB AND HER SPOTS AND SHE’S GOTTA BE TOUGH MOMMA WHEN THE BABY’S LOOKING BUT AS SOON AS THEY TURN AROUND, SHE’S LIKE,
“:3 Look at it. I made a thing. I made a rly good thing. :3”
it’s actually more amazing than that
hybrids are sterile, they can’t have babies – but she did
Napoleon Dynamite predicted this
Isn’t a lioness + tiger mix called Tigon? And Ligers are Tigress + Lion?
A Middleground 