15 Animals Who Adopted Other Species Will Surprise You!

From a predator lioness who takes care of a baby antelope to a talking gorilla who mothers two kittens, these are 15 animals that adopted other animals.

15. Lioness & baby antelopes
Everyone knows that antelopes are one of the main items on the lions’ menu. But nature works in mysterious ways and there’s no better proof of this than what happened at the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya in 2002. One lioness left wildlife experts stunned when she adopted not one but two newborn antelopes. When the lioness adopted her first antelope calf, animal behaviorists said she had probably mistaken it for a lion cub. But their theory fell through when the caring lioness showed full awareness of the calf's species and allowed its real mother to feed it before chasing her away.

14. Tortoise & baby hippo
Meet Mzee and Owen – a giant tortoise and a baby hippopotamus who became the subject of media attention after forming one of the most unusual bonds of friendship in the animal kingdom. Owen was separated from his herd after the December 2004 tsunami and was brought to the Haller Park rescue center in Mombasa, Kenya. After it was swept away and lost its mother, the poor hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Having no other hippos to interact with, Owen immediately bonded with tortoise Mzee, whose large shell and brown color probably reminded young Owen of an adult hippo.

13. Dalmatian & Spotted Lamb
This adorable black-and-white lamb, a cross between a purebred white Dorper ram and a crossbred Dorper and Van Rooy ewe, has a speckled coat that closely resembles that of a Dalmatian so it’s no wonder it was adopted by none other than an adult Dalmatian dog named Zoe. Julie Bolton of South Adelaide, Australia, breeds Dalmatians, including seven-year-old Zoe, a gorgeous champion in the dog show world. According to Julie, Zoe was the first one out of her litter and was always a little more forward than the others. That forwardness even translates to her breeding schedule: Zoe comes into heat regularly before the other female dogs, as if to prove she’s number one. And of course, she happens to be an excellent mother.

12. Whales & A Deformed Dolphin
In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of whales had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin. The researchers spotted the unusual group in the ocean surrounding the Azores, about 1,600 kilometers off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal. They observed the animals for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

00:00 Introduction
00:16 Lioness and Baby Antelopes
01:55 Dalmatian and Spotted Lamb
03:51 Male Cats and Baby Rabbits
06:32 Coco the Gorilla and Kittens
07:21 Monkey and Stray Puppy
08:58 Donkey and Sick Puppy
10:21 Belgian Shepherd
10:57 Cats and Baby Squirrels

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