Unlikely Friendships : 47 Remarkable Stories From the Animal Kingdom (11 page)

Indeed, Johann the cat soon improved markedly, and Rina decided to see how the two castoffs would get along. “When I put Jo into the iguana's enclosure, Sobe puffed up like Godzilla and hissed. He can look very big and threatening. But Jo didn't know to be afraid, so he just rubbed up against Sobe's rough skin and purred. Sobe probably wondered, What the heck? Why isn't he scared?” But the iguana calmed down quickly. He closed his eyes and let the kitten rub against his face and play with his
tail. He did nothing to discourage the contact, and even seemed to relish it.

Nowadays, Sobe is a free-range iguana in Rina's home. He'll get up on the bed with Jo and Rina's other cats and let them curl up around him, and he doesn't mind when they attempt to groom him or join him on his warm perch in his reptile enclosure. In fact, if the perch is empty, he'll wander around looking for the felines.

Although iguanas can be aggressive, especially once they are sexually mature, “Jo and the other cats have learned to read those cues and get out of the way when Sobe gets ‘too affectionate,'” Rina says. Even the best of friends have their limits, after all.

{I
NDIA
, 2003}

From the banks of India's Dhadhar River, and a village called Antoli, comes the story of the domestic cow and the wild leopard that sought its affection.

The leopard crept through the sugar cane on an October night, seeming to search for something. She found a cow tied in a field, the way villagers keep their livestock in this dusty farming community. The cat didn't harm the cow, but villagers worried about its predatory instincts, since they, too, were sometimes in the fields at night. They asked the Forest Department to remove the leopard to a wildlife sanctuary nearby.

And so the trappers came, and soon found themselves observers of an unexpected interaction. Wildlife conservationist
Rohit Vyas of Gujarat State was involved in several attempts to capture the leopard. The cat returned to the area nightly, often many times a night, but not as a predator sniffing out a warm meal. Instead, she came to be embraced. She approached the cow tentatively, rubbed her head against the cow's head, then settled against her body. The cow would lick the cat, starting with her head and neck, cleaning whatever she could reach as the cat wriggled in apparent delight. If the cow was asleep when the leopard arrived, the visitor would gently awaken her with a nuzzle to the leg before lying down and pressing close. Other cattle stood nearby, but the leopard ignored them. The chosen cow seemed pleased to give the leopard her nightly bath. For almost two months the cat showed up around eight in the evening and cuddled with the cow until the first hint of sunrise—as if hiding their strange tryst from the glare of day.

When word of the animals' bond got out, villagers became less afraid of the leopard and no longer worried about its capture. They were also surprised to see improved crop yields. Apparently the big cat was preying on pigs, monkeys, and jackals that usually devoured as much as a third of the farmers' harvest.

The cat stayed away for several weeks. Then on the last night the animals were seen together, the leopard visited nine times before wandering away from her friend for good. Rohit Vyas suggests that the leopard had been young and motherless when it first strayed into the village, using agricultural fields as a pathway from a distant forest. Perhaps a curious lick between cat and cow stirred the domestic animal's maternal instinct. The leopard sought the cow's warmth for a time, but once she reached adulthood, her need for motherly affection diminished. She moved on.

Even with such a plausible explanation, “This relationship was unimaginable,” says Rohit. “We were all spellbound by it. Who would expect a carnivore and hunter like a leopard to show love and affection toward its prey?”

{S
OUTH
A
FRICA
, 2010}