Talk about a wild surprise! A teenager from Argentina thought she had rescued a kitten. After nurturing him back to life, it turned out to be a wild puma!
Florencia, 18, was fishing with her brother when they found two kittens, approximately a week old. They were lying helplessly next to their passed-away mother. Florencia assumed the mother died during or soon after giving birth to her precious kittens.
Talking to the media, the Argentinian teen said:
"We thought that it was an abandoned cat who had given birth."
Florencia did a noble thing - she took the kittens and wanted to help them grow and heal.
However, only one survived, and she named him Tito. His sibling died only a week after it was rescued.
As Florencia would soon learn, Tito, who was playful and adorable, was not an ordinary cat.
Florencia described baby Tito by saying, "He liked to play, bite and run pretty fast. He liked to get on the table and jump from there, he thought it was normal."
Two months have passed since Florence, and her brother found and rescued Tito near Santa Rosa de Leales.
When the teen took the kitten to the vet after he suffered a minor injury, something was wrong. She told the press:
"The vet didn't know what it was but said it was not a normal cat."
What happened next would change Tito's and Florencia's lives forever.
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Since even the vet was unsure, Florencia called the Horco Molle nature reserve. The employees at the nature reserve identified Tito's species.
Upon learning that Tito, her beloved kitten, was not a domestic cat, but a puma jaguarondi, they had to part ways.
A jaguarundi is a small wild cat native to North and South America. Though they are not large in size, and the cubs may appear to be just like regular domesticated cats, jaguarundis are wild animals.
Florencia took him to Horco Molle, where he would continue to grow in a natural habitat.
Despite losing her new pet, Florencia did a noble thing and gave at least one of the two cubs a chance to live. She misses her cat dearly, though: "I miss him a lot, he was waiting for me when I arrived from school."
The two even shared the bed and created a unique bond that would stay with Florencia forever.