Usually, we help out people that are in need, and that’s how it is and that is how it will be forever, but something that we never expected is when an animal adopts a different breed of animal and treat it as her own.

Researchers documented a rare case of interspecies adoption as lioness took in a sick baby leopard.

The lioness cared for the leopard as if he were her own.

The unusual bond formed between the animals at the Gir National Park in Gujarat, India.

The animals reportedly crossed paths over a year ago.

The bond was notable as lions and leopards at the Gir National Park are known to be perpetual odds.

Stotra Chakrabarti, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota, studies animals and explained what happened.

During an interview with the New York Times, he explained that the animals compete for space and food.

But despite that, the young lioness decided to put the difference aside and take pity on the 2 month old leopard cub.

The details of the case were shared in the Ecology Journal Ecosphere last week.

Dheeraj Mittal, Stotra Chakrabarti, Shailesh B. Khambda, and Joseph K. Bump, the authors of the study, described that the lioness reportedly spent weeks nursing, caring, and feeding her adoptive son.

The young lioness had 2 cubs of her own, but she treated the leopard as if he were a member of the family.

The authors of the study spotted the pair in late December 2018 when they were hanging out near a freshly killed nilgai antelope.

The authors initially believed that the relationship would be brief, but they were shocked when it continued.

The 2 lionesses’ cubs were fond of their new leopard sibling.

The researchers saw the lion cubs playing with the leopard cup and following him up the trees.

The postdoctoral researcher said the adoption was one of the most wow moments he witnessed in his entire life.

Sadly the relationship of the lioness and the leopard cub ended.

The leopard cub’s body was found near a watering hole 45 days after the lioness took him in.

A field necropsy revealed the leopard cub died because of a femoral hernia that he had since the cub was born.

Chakrabarti said, “It would have been fantastic to see, when the leopard cub grew up, how things would be. But it didn’t happen.”

Imagine what it would have been like if the leopard cub made it.