33 photos
Dema, a 26-day-old endangered Sumatran Tiger cub cuddles up to 5-month-old female Orangutan, Irma at the ‘Taman Safari Indonesia’ Animal Hospital in West Java, Indonesia.
This hamster should be dinner, not a snake’s best friend – and in fact zookeepers offered up Gohan the hamster (whose name means “meal” in Japanese) as a tasty snack when Aochan the snake refused to eat frozen mice. But instead of chowing down, he made a friend. The pair cohabitate in harmony in a cardboard box at the Mutsugoro Okoku zoo in the outskirts of Tokyo.
Five-week-old young boar, Manni, enjoys playing with Jack Russell terrier, Candy, in Ehringhausen, Germany. Manni, who was found abandoned in the forest, is hand-fed now.
This is one protective adoptive mama. German Dachshund “Bessi”, right, guards a five-day-old tiger cub at a zoo in Stroehen, northern Germany. Bessi began nursing the little tiger after it lost its parents.
Bessi and her adopted cub.
This unlikely pair lives in the Busch Gardens animal park. In a case of cross-species infatuation, Bea, a three-year-old giraffe, and Wilma, an ostrich, share a cuddly moment.
A farm worker holds a piglet and two of the three tiger cubs abandoned by their mother at a zoo in the Ukraine. A pig at a farm in eastern Ukraine agreed to nurse the three little tigers together with a dozen of its own piglets.
Koko, the famed 230-pound gorilla who converses in sign language, was known for her affection for her kitten. Shown here in 1985.
A pet lover and his two dogs and a Vietnamese pig join a march in Manila to protest cruelty to dogs, which are considered delicacies in some provinces in the archipelago.
Owner Steph Tuft, 25, takes duck Essy on a lead for a walk with her Staffordshire cross dogs Rachka and DD in Bournemouth, England. Essy, a nine-month-old Cherry Valley duck thinks she is a dog, and likes to walk with the other two pets.
These cross-dressing piglets are just trying to fit in with their new mama. Tourists watch a tigress with piglets at the Sri Racha tiger zoo, in Chonburi province southeast of Bangkok.
A mother’s love crosses categories: Cora, a two-month-old baby tiger with her adoptive mother, a four-year-old dog. Cora, born in a circus, was rejected by her mother. The adoptive mother feeds the baby tiger as it were one of her puppies.
Cora and her cub!
That’s bananas! A capybara – one of the world’s largest rodents – carries a squirrel monkey on its back at Tobu Zoo.
Three lion cubs feed on the milk of a mother dog after their mother abandoned them after birth, at the Safari Park in Hefei, eastern China’s Anhui province. Using female dogs as surrogate mothers for tiger and lion cubs, bear cubs and other newly borned animals is a common practice in Chinese zoos.
A stray wild boar cub captured by farmers gets civilized in a hogpen with pigs in Lantian County of Shaanxi Province, China.
A Chihuahua pup named Zachary from Cundy’s Harbor, Maine snuggles with one of three orphaned squirrels that his mother is raising along with her own two puppies.
The pup looks puzzled … but doesn’t seem to mind its new napping friend.
Two-week-old rabbits seem at home with their adopted mother Pooh the cat in Kingston, Ont. Pooh’s owner found the rabbits in her garden and brought them home.
Three months old tiger cub Zoya, rejected by her mother, plays with Alsatian puppy Frida of the same age, in a special enclosure at the Warsaw zoo. The dog owned by a zoo employee was introduced to the tiger so that she could have a friend.
Now this is love – One of Budapest Zoo’s barbary macaques searches for fleas in the fur of a barbary sheep in Budapest, Hungary.
Pippo, the tabby cat, has a close encounter with a pet rabbit while strolling in the outskirts of Milan…with a surprise, when he finds out who really is the predator! Curiosity did not kill the cat, but surely scared him this time. Good for him that rabbits do not climb fences.
The cat-rabbit pairing seems to be one that works. Lucky, the cat has nursed and cared for a baby rabbit named Merlin along with her kittens as if it were her own.
Llama Java, left, stands by while fellow llama Lilly shares a moment with a rabbit as they are watched by Anna, 11, right, and Deborah Bernstein, both of Brewster, New York, while waiting for the Blessing of the Animals at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
A pet cat plays with a stray dog that just has a shower in a pet shop in China.
A lion and a Siberian tiger take a rest inside a safari park for Siberian tigers in Harbin, northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province.
Two lion cubs play with a tiger cub in the Jinan Wildlife World in Jinan, capital of east China’s Shandong Province. Three lion cubs have been put in the same cage with four tiger cubs with an aim of helping them make friends.
It seems like the big cats are making one big happy feline family.
These pair met in New York style at the annual Macy’s Petacular.
Four lion cubs play with two tiger cubs.
Rabbits and kittens play together all the time at the North Shore Animal League.
An 11-week-old African lion cub named Koza and his new companion Cairo, a 3-month-old Italian mastiff puppy, take a moment to relax with their favorite toys after a morning of chasing one another at the San Diego Zoo.
