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'It's A Once-In-A-Lifetime Event': Wild Lioness Spotted Nursing A Baby Leopard

July 14, 2017

For the first time, a wild lioness has been photographed nursing a baby leopard.

Photo credit: Joop Van Der Linde/Ndutu Lodge

Interspecies suckling has been documented among captive animals, but this sighting is pretty much mind-blowing to lion experts. Typically, a lioness would kill a baby leopard.

"It's unprecedented," Luke Hunter, president and chief conservation officer of the global wild cat organization Panthera, told The Washington Post. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime event."

Photo credit: Joop Van Der Linde/Ndutu Lodge

The photos were taken Tuesday by a guest at the Ndutu Lodge, a conservation area in Tanzania.

Photo credit: Joop Van Der Linde/Ndutu Lodge