College student comes across a "weird-looking animal" in one of their classrooms and immediately tries to pet it, turns out it was actually a civet cat: 'I thought it was some kind of mutant squirrel... just staring into the soul'

Mariel Ruvinsky • Writer and Editor

Mar 26, 2025 5:00 PM EDT

Look, we know for a fact that someday we are going to end up on the news. And not for something cool like inventing something or curing something, but for being dumb as heck and trying to pet a wild lynx or something. Because we cannot help ourselves. That is what we have learned from listening to other people observe our behavior in the wild. Apparently, we try to pet everything that moves.

The thing is - we knew that about ourselves. And although we know that future news segment about us being dumb is going to happen, we're okay with that. We've accepted it. It's just that how can you not want to pet a wolf when that wolf is being so adorably silly? And how can you not try to hug a bear when that bear decides to chill in your pool on a random hot day? And can you really say that you wouldn't try to make friends with a bunch of bobcats if you found those bobcats adorably playing with some tennis balls in your field in the middle of your game? We couldn't. So, we understand why the first instinct of the person in this story was to reach their hand out, we really, really do.

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"Found This in My College"

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Of course their first instinct was to try to pet it. Of course. And no, we are not judging because we know that we would have done the exact same thing. Rabies? Other diseases? Would not have even gone through our minds. Our hand would have been reaching out toward it before our brain could even make the conscious decision to do so.
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Civet cats, apparently, are a relatively common species of animal in certain places in India - which is where this poster is at from what we have gathered. And they are not cats, despite their name. They are actually closer to mongooses. We can kind of see the resemblance. And yes, we would totally try to pet them both.
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