Real life jungle boy kept alive by cats

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-23 17:31

A one-year-old boy has reportedly been discovered living with a clowder of wild cats in Argentina.

The youngster has been referred to as Mowgli, the character in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book who was reared by a pack of wolves.

Police in Misiones found the boy surrounded by eight felines, while doctors believe the animals huddled around the child at night to keep him warm. According to The Telegraph, the boy ate scraps of food foraged by the animals.

Policewoman Alicia Lorena Lindgvist said: "I was walking and noticed a gang of cats sitting very close together. It is unusual to see so many like that so I went for a closer look and that's where I saw him. The boy was lying at the bottom of a gutter.

"There were all these cats on top of him licking him because he was really dirty. When I walked over they became really protective and spat at me. They were keeping the boy warm while he slept."

The boy's father, a homeless man, was traced and claimed he lost his son a few days earlier, adding that cats had always been protective of his son.