Marine biologist Chris Lowe was stumped when he saw it.
Sure, he’s a shark guy with the California State University Long Beach Shark Lab and land critters aren’t really his speciality, still seeing a deer lick fox stopped him in his tracks.
And, Lowe managed to snap a photo of it on Catalina, an island where he’s usually observing sharks.
“Never seen that before!” he tweeted.
I know it’s not a shark, but I saw a buck licking an Island fox’s head today. Never seen that before! pic.twitter.com/Fxngr8Hkr2
— Chris Lowe (@CSULBsharklab) October 11, 2017
Which of course got people talking about interspecies love.
Including Mike Cove a conservation biologist who spends a lot of time in Florida.
He offered a photo of a deer sniffing a cat pointing out, “We get this all the time in the Keys.”
We get this all the time in the Keys….interesting that it is happening on islands. Certainly a pathway for disease transmission. pic.twitter.com/xDZ4Ngjz8G
— Mike Cove (@mike_cove) October 12, 2017
And a theory about why.
I think they are licking salt. The air is salty, the cats in the Keys are generally salty, you get the idea! The cats really enjoy it though
— Mike Cove (@mike_cove) October 12, 2017
It could be the salt.
The Atlantic offered a few more theories. It feels good. Plain old curiosity. General weirdness. (People are weird. Why not animals?)
But isn’t it more fun to imagine it’s love?
Photo Chris Lowe/Twitter
