Gorilla and Rabbit: Unexpected Companions
A gorilla and rabbit friendship is a documented cross-species bond, recorded most clearly at Pennsylvania’s Erie Zoo in 2012, where Samantha, an elderly western lowland gorilla, groomed and shared food with a Dutch rabbit named Panda. Ethologists read the pairing as affiliative behavior, not sentiment projected onto animals. A gorilla and a rabbit named Panda […]
Elephant and Rhino Odd Friendship
A picture circulates every few years online: a small elephant calf with its trunk laid against the flank of a young rhinoceros, the two animals lying side by side in shaded straw. The caption usually reads as the simplest version of the story, friendship across species. The story underneath the caption is more interesting and […]
Interspecies Adoption: Dog Nursing Kittens
A lactating dog will sometimes accept orphaned kittens, groom them, and let them latch and feed. The behavior is reliable enough that shelters use it, and odd enough that the internet rediscovers it every spring. The animal-behavior literature treats it as a special case of allonursing, the cross-fostering response, and pseudopregnancy-driven maternal arousal. None of […]