From PawNation, we have a story and a video of the world’s bravest cat, who confronts what looks to be a gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), one of three crocodilian species native to India:
The plucky cat somehow wandered into the croc enclosure at a zoo in Jaipur, India, and found her way to the edge of the water. As one of the crocodiles glided toward her, the cat seemed oblivious to the fact that she might be staring death in the face.
“When the crocodile came up in the water, we felt sure we were witnessing the last minutes of her life,” said Vishal Chaudhary, whose wife, Manu, shot video of the incident. Other zoo-goers tried in vain to shout the cat away from the edge of the pond.
Only when the crocodile was nearly on top of the cat did she finally notice it. For a few moments, the onlookers were relieved, assuming the cat would flee from the danger. But she did them one better by standing up for herself and scaring the croc away.
“She’s fighting, oh wow, that’s superb. Look at it,” the Chaudharys can be heard saying in their video as the cat hisses at the crocodile and swats at it twice with her claws. The cat delivered a couple of scratches to her foe’s snout, and the crocodile retreated back into the water without the cat giving up an inch of ground.
“We couldn’t believe it when the cat daringly warned the crocodile and then fearlessly slapped it twice,” Vishal Chaudhary said later. Everyone who witnessed what happened must have been impressed, but the cat trotted away from the encounter like it was nothing.
As your second course, here’s a video that, on its site, suggests that the big animal is a d-g/wolf hybrid. I don’t know about that, but it’s clearly protective of a Siamese kitten:
The kitten protection act is just too cute for words 🙂
I have known a lot of cats who appear to be fearless in the face of danger. At least, I like to think it is fearlessness rather than dumb risk taking.
One of my dogs used to do that, picking semi-feral kittens and walking them around. It was cute until the day he squeezed the cat too much.
The cat vs crocodile video is a fabulous trip to elsewhere–not only the casual cat triumphant over the alien-looking croc, but the voices in English and Hindi(?), the two women urging a silent child to look, the chattering, incomprehensible (to me) man, the setting with flashes of other walls, other alleys, other colors, and the mysterious bleeps in the audio. It’s a big world.
The cat had not the slightest clue about what the alligator might be or do.
That gharial looks pretty small, and I think they mainly eat fish. Not sure how big they get.
Yes, that is a fairly small gharial. They get up to about 20 feet.
My thoughts too. Not a particularly threatening critter, really.
If a saltie or mugger were involved, a trip to see ceiling cat in teh sky would be inevitable.
First video: And that’s why our dog (mostly) stays out of reach of our cat. (This video raises the question, though: should they really have a crocodile ramp there?)
Second video: That looks like a Siberian Husky to me. My best friend had one when we were growing up.
Yep. I think it’s a Siberian Husky / Malamute mix. Looks exactly like a previous pet of our family.
no crocs, gators, or gharials in my neighborhood, but for past year — since an episode where I was deploying a toilet plunger — my Manxie thinks there’s a monster in the hall toilet. Any loud gurgle, and she races in bristling and growling. And if the door is closed, she’ll pound on it…
That ain’t nothing. Here is an american cat and alligators. This was on TV news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_29k6dJ6DA
I think there was a situation where a particular alligator was allowed to come up to where they were barbecuing, was given a chicken leg, and went back to the water. I’m not sure if it was the same place or not, and have not found it looking around.
I’ve seen that video before and it’s very disturbing. Those alligators are far too used to humans.
I thought the humans seemed far too used to alligators. Kitty was brave … but alligator can also take a chunk out of bare human leg. Man was a bit stupid, I think.
Only the cat had the sense to know you don’t make friends with alligators.
Hey, isn’t feeding alligators a crime in Florida?
Perhaps the dog was just being “protective” in the same way that I’m protective of a bacon cheeseburger.
sub
!#%$&#!