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Meerkat Attacks Cheetah, Cheetah Mistakes It For Grooming And Starts To Purr Loudly
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Meerkat Attacks Cheetah, Cheetah Mistakes It For Grooming And Starts To Purr Loudly

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Meet Kinji. He is a friendly young cheetah at Cheetah Experience, a not-for-profit organization in South Africa that provides sanctuary for a number of endangered and threatened species, including cheetahs, leopards, male lions, servals, caracals, African wildcats, wolves, meerkats and a Siberian tiger.

Kinji loves the meerkats, and often goes down to visit them. The feeling, however, is certainly not mutual. Not that Kinji cares! While the meerkats see Kinji as a natural enemy and therefore a threat, Kinji just wants a little attention. Rubbing himself on the enclosure, you can tell from his purrs that while the meerkats furiously try to repel him with fearless attacks, Kinji is actually loving it, mistaking the attacks for friendly grooming.

According to carer Dolph C. Volker, Kinji very rarely purrs and the meerkat ‘attacks’ are one of the only things that gets him do it. “Not even I can get Kinji to purr” he says. “I think Kinji enjoys the scratching the meerkats do to his fur. But they are definitely trying to hurt him.” I guess some like it rough!

You can Visit the Cheetah Experience website to find out more about Kinji and his meerkat frenemies.

More info: Cheetah Experience | Dolph C. Volker

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James Caunt

James Caunt

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James is a Bored Panda reporter who graduated with a BA in Peace And Conflict Studies and an MA in African Affairs. Before Bored Panda, he was an English teacher and also travelled a lot, doing odd jobs from beer-slinging to brickie's labourer and freelance journalism along the way. James loves covering stories about social and environmental issues and prefers to highlight the positive things that unite us, rather than petty internet squabbles about fictional characters. James is the grumpy, contradictory one who thinks that Bored Panda, due to its large audience, has a social responsibility to inspire and inform its readers with interesting issues and entertaining, well-researched stories. Let's do our bit to make our little corner of the internet a smarter, more truthful and less angry place!

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James Caunt

James Caunt

Author, Community member

James is a Bored Panda reporter who graduated with a BA in Peace And Conflict Studies and an MA in African Affairs. Before Bored Panda, he was an English teacher and also travelled a lot, doing odd jobs from beer-slinging to brickie's labourer and freelance journalism along the way. James loves covering stories about social and environmental issues and prefers to highlight the positive things that unite us, rather than petty internet squabbles about fictional characters. James is the grumpy, contradictory one who thinks that Bored Panda, due to its large audience, has a social responsibility to inspire and inform its readers with interesting issues and entertaining, well-researched stories. Let's do our bit to make our little corner of the internet a smarter, more truthful and less angry place!

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John L
Community Member
7 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wonder what each individual meerkat's response would be if they were removed from their peer group? The response may be more like humans separated from the gang. That would be an interesting experiment.

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John L
Community Member
7 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wonder what each individual meerkat's response would be if they were removed from their peer group? The response may be more like humans separated from the gang. That would be an interesting experiment.

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