Tiger, Lion and Bear Are Best Friends

(MYFOX NATIONAL) - An unlikely "family" of animals is living together at Noah's Ark Animal Rehabilitation Center in Locust Grove, Ga. Baloo the bear, Leo the Lion and Shere Khan the tiger have grown up together and shared a habitat since they were cubs.

The animals were rescued from drug dealers eight years ago during a police drug raid in Atlanta, The Telegraph reports . They were just two-month-old cubs at the time and police speculate they had been kept as status symbol pets by the drug dealers.

When they were delivered to the rescue center, officials decided to keep the trio together.

"We could have separated them, but since they came as a kind of family, the zoo decided to keep them together," said Diane Smith, assistant director of the Noah's Ark zoo. "To our knowledge, this is the only place where you'll find this combination of animals together, they are our BLT, (bear, lion and tiger)."

In the wild, the animals would live on different continents and would not be very friendly to each other, but Smith said at the zoo they are best friends.

"It is possible to see Baloo, who is a 1,000 pound bear, Shere Khan, a 350 pound tiger and Leo, who is also 350 pounds, messing around like brothers," she explained. "They are totally oblivious to the fact that in any other circumstance they would not be friends."

The zoo has several pictures of the trio posted on its Facebook page and other photos posted on a Flickr page .

Some other unusual animal pairings caught on camera include a mouse resting on top of a frog, a hippo buddying up to a turtle, and a monkey catching a ride on the back of a cat.