In 2002, villagers in Antoli, a small settlement in Vadodara district, Gujarat, India, reported an unusual sighting. A young leopard was seen wandering around at night. What drew attention was not fear or panic — but calm. On multiple occasions, the wild cat was photographed sitting next to a cow tied in a field.

It wasn’t until one day that the owner noticed a leopard coming to his barn every night. The animal would repeatedly approach a particular cow, which had a body color similar to that of a leopard and was kept in an open field in front of his house. To his surprise, instead of seeing aggression from the leopard or fear from the cow, he saw a peaceful interaction between them.

The leopard, upon arriving, would completely ignore the other two bulls and the buffalo calf and go straight to its friend, cuddling with her.

The villagers who had been keeping watch soon noticed that the leopard’s visits became far less frequent, likely because of their presence just twenty metres away.

What could have been the reason for such attachment? No one could tell. However, Conservator of forests, Vadodara, H S Singh noted that, “Sometimes animal behavior can get modified. In this case, probably because the leopard which has passed the sub-adult stage, lives in a rural area and not strictly a wild environment.”