No lion — that’s a dog.
Visitors at the zoo in the People’s Park of Luohe in Henan, China, got in an uproar after a Tibetan mastiff was placed in a cage labeled “African lion.” According to the AFP, the dog spoiled the not-so-clever ruse when it began to bark.
Judging by pictures of the exhibit that circulated on Chinese Twitter analog Sina Weibo, the so-called “lion” wasn’t all that convincing to begin with:
Lions are cats, by the way. People do seem to have trouble remembering that.
According to AFP, visitors felt cheated out of the 15 yuan ($2.45) they’d spent to see the bogus exhibit, which also reportedly mislabeled “coypu rodents in a snake’s cage, a white fox in a leopard’s den, and another dog in a wolf pen.”
“The African lions will be back. They went to another zoo to breed,” a zoo administrator reportedly told the Oriental Daily, as quoted by the South China Morning Post.
Sure. They’re off “breeding.” Maybe when they come back, they’ll have cubs: Cubs that look suspiciously like Tibetan mastiff puppies. Fortunately, that wouldn’t be a total loss, considering how cute they are.