5 Real Animal Friendships Straight Out of a Disney Movie

5 Snake Decides a Hamster Is Better as a Roommate

Hamsters, like most rodents, are the meal of choice for many snakes. So much so, in fact, that escaped snakes have been caught in hamster cages because their freshly gained hamster-shaped belly lump prevented them from slithering back out between the bars. Snakes are so intoxicated by the mere thought of sweet hamster cutlets that they will happily ignore their surroundings and neglect their personal freedom just to fill their bellies.

And then there's Japan.

Aochan is a Japanese rat snake held at a Tokyo zoo. As the name suggests, these particular snakes are even more prone to rodent-related shenanigans than most. In that capacity, they are used by some farmers as a form of pest control because, hey, not everyone is a cat person. So it was a bit of a surprise when Aochan flat out refused to eat the frozen mice commonly fed to captive snakes. The zoo staff scratched their heads at this surprising turn of events, until one of them had a revelation: Of course, the snake wants fresh meat!

So they took a female dwarf hamster, dropped her into Aochan's cage and waited for nature to take its course. But instead of the usual panicked squeak-gulp-burp course of events, the hamster was totally cool with the yard-long hamster-eating snake whose home it had been dropped into. It padded straight to Aochan, who watched with interest. Then it climbed onto his back, curled happily into a ball and went to sleep.

Did Aochan fly into a mindless rage, seeing his pride as a rat snake being torn to shreds by this overtly friendly furball? Nope, he was totally OK with it, and they have been best friends ever since.

We feel it's worth noting that Aochan wasn't just a random snake that likes to eat rodents. During this first meeting, he was a starving snake that hadn't eaten for weeks. The situation was, from a biological standpoint, not unlike offering a five-course meal to a starving man, only to watch him turn it down because he wanted to hang out with the potatoes. There wasn't anything biologically wrong with Aochan either -- when it became apparent that he wasn't going to eat the hamster, the zoo staff gingerly tried again with frozen mice, and he gulped them down no problem.

There's no viable explanation for the relationship of the snake and the hamster. The hamster just happens to be OK with snakes, and Aochan responds in turn. The snake really, really seems to like having the hamster around, despite the zookeepers' passive aggressive efforts to get the critter eaten (they named the hamster Gohan, which basically means "meal").

4 Tigers and Pigs Nurse One Another's Offspring

Some of you may have seen the email forward containing this picture.

Yes, that's a tiger, with five piglets that are for some reason wearing tiny tiger costumes.

The dubious attached story usually describes a tigress in California who lost her cubs from complications during labor. The tigress unsurprisingly fell into a depression, and panicked doctors suggested dressing up newborn piglets in tiger-striped jackets with the hope that the tigress wouldn't notice the difference. Somehow, it worked (according to the legend, anyway), and a heartwarming email forward was born.

Now, there are exactly two possible reactions to this story: either a quiet, teary smile right before forwarding the story to all your relatives, or a high-pitched, nasal cry of "fake!" before rushing online to find evidence of Photoshopping. Both reactions are valid, but the conspiracy theorist can squint at the pixels all he can: While the above story is, in fact, complete and utter manure, the images themselves are 100 percent authentic.

The photos were actually taken at Srirachi Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand. Srirachi is a peculiar instutute that follows a practice of, we kid you not, switching the newborns of different species during nursing periods. In fact, the mother tigress from the pictures was herself nursed by a mother pig until she was four months old.

It works, too -- they say that even if the staff removed the tiger jackets (which appear to be there for our sake), the tiger mother would still recognize its "children" and continue treating the piglets as her own young. The end result is that the animals are more docile toward not only each other, but also staff and visitors somehow.

It's not just a tiger/pig deal, either: The tigress has at least one similar thing going on with a dog that resides in the zoo. And since Srirachi also houses camels, elephants, snakes and other exotic animals, we can't help but wonder what other arrangements are going on in its cages. We guess they're not the stuff of adorable email forwards, though.

3 Lioness Repeatedly Adopts Meals

In December 2001, staff at Kenya's Samburu Game Reserve were astonished, and slightly confused, when they came across an adult lioness walking through the plains with a baby oryx. This was a surprising turn of events, because oryx are antelopes and the very game of choice for large African cats -- they're smaller than other species of antelope and fairly easy kills, yet just large enough to make a full meal.

To make things even more baffling, the lioness (nicknamed "Larsens" by the reserve staff for some reason) originally frightened off the young oryx's mother, who pissed off just as promptly as an antelope chased by a lion should. But instead of chasing the mother for a kill or even snacking the terrified calf as an easy meal, Larsens decided to flip logic the bird and raise the little oryx as her own cub.

Keep in mind, it makes sense from the young oryx's situation -- having a lioness as a mom isn't just badass, it's also a sound protection strategy. The African wilderness is a difficult place to survive even when you're not a newborn, and having Larsens around automatically made it the winner of every "my parent could beat up your parent" argument in the playground. But nobody could ever quite figure out what the lion got out of the arrangement, other than raised eyebrows at parent-teacher meetings.

But whatever she was in it for, Larsens treated the oryx no differently than any lioness would her cub. She even put herself at risk to protect the little guy from other predators. Several times. One of said predators being a goddamn leopard.

The only thing Larsens couldn't do, by the way, was nurse the oryx properly. Remember this -- it will be important later.

Sadly, not all lions were as understanding as Larsens. One afternoon, while she was having a nap, a male lion happened upon them and decided that, hey, if she's not eating, he'll just help himself. Larsens woke up to the horrifying sight of her slain oryx-child. The damage had been done, so there was no point in fighting the male lion, but rest assured she roared at him so much that he damn well stayed roared.

Larsens then mournfully wandered off into the African plains in a tragic anti-Disney ending, having learned a tragic lesson about the nature of life in the wild.

Ha, just kidding! She totally showed up again two months later with another baby oryx in tow. When wardens took the second oryx into their care, she just went and found a third. And this time, having figured out the nursing thing, Larsens allowed the original mother brief visits for feeding, thus handily solving the nutritional concerns.

The wardens just sort of gave up forcing Larsens to conform after that, so we're forced to assume she now wanders the Kenya plains with a whole pride of oryxes in tow, just daring anyone to mess with her crew.

2 The Kitten That Was Raised by a Crow

Although they don't fit into most of the tightest predator/prey relationship definitions, one wouldn't expect cats and crows to get along anywhere outside a Halloween mural. Cats are notoriously independent, while crows, as we have mentioned before, socialize in groups numbering up to hundreds of thousands. And, of course, there's the minor matter of cats killing anything flying and feathery they can get their claws on.

So Ann and Wallace Collito were somewhat confused when their backyard became the stomping grounds for a crow and cat tag-team that eventually inspired a children's book.

It all started when the Collitos discovered a sickly kitten in their backyard. Before they could lend any assistance of their own, an adult crow approached the kitten, with a meal of worms and bugs. Judging the kitten too weak to feed herself, the crow proceeded to stuff the food directly into her mouth, the exact same way a mother bird feeds her young. When the dumbfounded Collitos approached to get a closer look, the crow actually began taking defensive action, placing itself between the kitten and the humans and generally getting ready to kick some Homo sapiens ass.

The strange coexistence between the Collitos, the paternal raven and the kitten that damn well ate her worms whether she liked it or not persisted for some time, until the strange animal pairing finally learned to trust the human couple. The crow (now nicknamed Moses) allowed the kitten (Cassie) to sleep indoors. During the day, Cassie would head outside to play with her surrogate parent, and if she took her time about it, Moses the crow would actually wander up to the Collitos' door to check out what gives.

Scientists were completely baffled by this rare and unique display of animal affection, even taking into account the fact that crows are a species that surprises humans on a regular basis. Some speculated that Moses adopted Cassie as a surrogate child after losing his young, but if that were the case, Moses should have abandoned the kitten a few months later, as crows do with their young. Instead, the pair had daily meetings throughout the fall Cassie grew up and the five freaking years that followed, sharing meals and playing as if it was as natural as the scores of slack-jawed scientists that surrounded them.

1 Apartment-Raised Lion Cub Maintains His Human-Hugging Habit in the Wild

Let's say you're living in London, England. The year is 1969 and you have 250 guineas to spend -- approximately $4,600 in Today Money. What would you do with it? Well, if you're John Rendall and Anthony Bourke, you've just decided now is the perfect time to go to Harrods and fill the lion-shaped hole in your hearts.

Harrods, if you didn't know, is an English department store. They totally rocked an exotic animal section back in the day -- a fact that no doubt helps you realize how much less awesome your shopping mall is. Rendall and Bourke were initially looking at camels, when they suddenly spotted a lion cub in a cage and said pretty much what we would have: "Yes. This is what's going to happen."

So they named the lion Christian and brought him to live in their London apartment. Christian was incredibly affectionate and friendly, known for giving lion hugs by jumping up and placing his front paws on people's shoulders. But soon, Rendall and Bourke came to terms with the cold facts: Adorable or not, Christian was still a freaking lion. And just like anybody who purchased a baby alligator or an infant Shoggoth will tell you, you either give up the pet before it gets too big or find a place to hide the bodies.

After about a year, Christian was as friendly as ever, but his size was becoming such that Rendall and Bourke worried he might hurt someone by accident. And you don't have to be an expert in wild animals to know that one slip into instinct can leave somebody dead or maimed (see: Siegfried and Roy, and countless others).

So, they made an arrangement with wildlife conservationist George Adamson to reintegrate Christian into the wild. Most domesticated animals find heading back to the wild pretty difficult, but Christian exceeded everyone's expectations by immediately going full Mufasa in Kenya's Kora Reserve, to the point that he actually became the alpha lion of a pride.

After a few years, Rendall and Bourke realized that they were missing their old pal and decided to come back to Kenya for a last visit, against a hefty stack of warnings that Christian was, you know, a lion. He was wild now, and he would not only have forgotten them, but also view them as a potential supper.

Yet there they stood, facing the king of all animals and the leader of its own pride, on his own turf. And the big cat formerly known as Christian, the proudest and most feared lion in all Kenya, took a glance at the two intruders, drew his lungs full, poised to leap ...

... and danced and ran to his old owners like a little kitten, to greet them with the most excited lion hugs he'd given in years.

NOTE: Do not go out and try that yourself.

For more interesting tid bits about the Animal Kingdom, check out 6 Animals That Just Don't Give A F#@k and Nature's 6 Most Diabolical Predators.