Baby impala tries to make friends with a leopard - what happens next might surprise you
As fans of wildlife shows will confirm, impalas are quite often the food of choice for hungry leopards in the wild - but maybe not in this case
If this incredible footage is anything to go by, maybe opposites do attract after all.
Because it looks as though one baby impala's attempts to befriend a leopard - one of its chief hunters - might NOT have ended with the little antelope being eaten.
The plucky youngster in question seems determined to befriend the killer cat.
It begins by nuzzling the predator's nose and mouth as it lazes in a clearing.
Even when the leopard starts 'playing' a little rough, the courageous - or daft - impala makes no attempt to leave. In fact, it follows the big cat around.
The bizarre interaction was filmed in Kruger National Park, South Africa, by game ranger Estiaan Houy, 31, while out on safari with British and American guests.
He said: “In all my years of being a game ranger I have never seen such an encounter, nor do I ever expect to see a repeat of it again.
“I felt amazed and honoured to see such a rare and unexplainable sighting.
"The impala at no stage showed any signs of distress or fear.
"Every time the leopard would playfully interact with the baby impala, it would return to the leopard and either sniff its face or push its head against the leopard's face.
“A few times the impala would jump away from the leopard and, true to cat form, the leopard would pull it back closer with its claws."
Estiaan said young leopards sometimes play with their prey due to a lack of killing experience, and believes this may explain the odd encounter.
In his opinion, the leopard may well have killed and eaten the impala later.
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He added: "Although this appears to be play, only the leopard was actually playing and not the impala.
"The impala rubbed faces with the leopard because it's a newborn and doesn't know any better.
"The leopard could have been waiting for the baby's mother to return and then kill her."
Houy, who works for Jock Safari Lodge, says the amiable interaction lasted for an hour before the leopard lazily strolled into a bush, closely followed by the impala.
William Fox, the senior project manager from INGWE Leopard Research said: “The leopard is just doing what leopards do and like many cats, it is playing with its prey.
"I've seen similar things before, when just like a domestic cat, which may bring a mouse home and play with it, this leopard is just playing around before the inevitable.
"As much as it would be nice to think predator and prey became buddies, the instances of vegetarian leopards are non existent, so the end result is very likely to not have ended well for the Impala."
