Cutest smiling tiger cub:

[tblue37]

The image shows a #Siberian-tiger cub #nature #photography #naturephotography #travel #love #photooftheday #instagood #naturelovers #landscape #beautiful #instagram #picoftheday #art #photo #travelphotography #wildlife #like #sunset #mountains #adventure #summer #flowers #follow #happy #sky #explore

— (@marvellousnature01.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T16:18:58.594Z

[Deuxcents]

1. O..how I love this..I'm gonna keep it, if that's ok 😻

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Looks like an adorable teddy bear.

[hlthe2b]

3. Absolutely adorable!! But, this guy wants his attention too LOL

[tblue37]

4. How adorable! Thanks!

[mjvpi]

5. Heard her on the hill above m house last night. Lookin' for love.

[hlthe2b]

6. My dog and I came within the length of a fooball field from one on a walk on a Golden, CO trail one year...

The County Park Ranger managed to wave us off before we continued on that way, blissfully unknowing what lay ahead. We were late in the afternoon for our daily walk--far too late apparently...

Still, I think mountain lions are just about the most beautiful of the big cats--not that they don't have competition--but I just love them!

[mjvpi]

21. 100%. I attended a Unitarian Church service where the "sermon" was a mountain lion researcher.

According to him, they are the most highly evolved predators on the planet. Something crazy like 90% muscle. For me, they evoke a feeling right up there with images from the Hubble space telescope. I have never encountered one in the wild, despite a wilderness area starting across the street from me. So lucky you!

[JMCKUSICK]

7. That might be the cutest kitty I've ever seen

Thank you tblue37.

[slightlv]

8. OMG! How could anything be THAT cute!!!

So adorable, you just want to pick him up and love all over him!

[highplainsdem]

19. He doesn't exist. That's AI. See my other replies here.

[ReRe]

9. Can one imagine how that photographer felt when he/she captured it?

I would have wept. It had to be a remote camera. Or at a zoo. The only time I have ever seen a cub smile like that was in a cartoon!

[highplainsdem]

18. No photographer. AI trickery. Generated by a YouTube account apparently posting only AI, but not

labeling it as such, and posted by a Bluesky account posting a lot of AI and mislabeling it as nature and photography. See my two replies below.

[ReRe]

22. Well, that takes all the cuteness away! :(

AI is no fair. Thanks for letting me know!

[highplainsdem]

24. It's still a cute image. I can understand anyone seeing it thinking it's cute. But I hate the deception by the YouTube

account that created it and the Bluesky account that posted it. And I hate the theft of all the photos and artwork that went into training that AI tool. Which was mindlessly creating that image via algorithm, and could do so only because so many cute photos and paintings and drawings of tiger cubs had been stolen, along with the words "tiger cub" so the AI associated them.

It's unfortunate that it wasn't labeled AI, because people who think that's what a cute tiger cub is supposed to look like could end up thinking real cubs aren't very cute.

I remember when OpenAI CEO Sam.Altman was boasting about the new AI video generator they'd just introduced, Sora, and one of the videos was of ants in a nest, scurrying around, and some AI fans were raving about how AI users could do "nature documentaries" just with AI.

The "realistic" AI-created ants they were raving about had 4 legs, not 6.

[KPN]

10. Awww. Everybody should see this. Kicked, kicked, kicked.

[TBF]

11. Definitely the best thing

I've seen on the Internet this week!

[Figarosmom]

12. Yes he is the cutest...nt

[Warpy]

13. When I grow up, I'll be able to get you down in two gulps

New, that kitty is cute, really cute.

True story: in one of my old neighborhoods, a panel truck illegally transporting a full grown Bengal tiger to a show in Las Vegas stopped at motel overnight. Some local thugs broke into the van and let the kittyt out.

People opening a Taco Bell the next day got a surprise, big tiger lounging in front of one of the doors. They went into the other one and called animal control...who didn't seem all that surprised. The fast food people said the tiger seemed pretty tame but they bet he was hungry.

Having no one get particularly excited by a Bengal tiger out loose in the neighborhood is one of the reasons I love this town.

[Cne99999]

14. Not that it matters, but that's A.I. generated.

Still one of the cutest pics I've seen in a long time.

[highplainsdem]

15. It's very cute. It's also AI-generated, from this YouTube account:

https://youtube.com/@pets-dog-cat/featured

From the YouTube shorts page there

https://youtube.com/@pets-dog-cat/shorts

and I've changed the links so the short videos will appear here, not just the link.

Btw, whoever has this account apparently spent a lot of time generating short videos to get some that were good enough to post. But you can still see some AI glitches. It's likely they made hundreds of attempts per video. But the videos they finally got have millions or hundreds of thousands of views, so they apparently thought the effort was worth it.

A slightly different version - and notice the morphing/rippling of the cub's hindquarters in both videos:

Palm-size tiger:

Another palm-size tiger - and notice there's a spike growing out the side of its right hind paw.

Palm-size peacock - with the bird constantly morphing:

Tiger cub playing violin, and morphing:

Btw, before I found that YouTube account, I looked at hundreds of photos of real tiger cubs. None of which had the same kittenish face as the one in the OP. Then I just did a Google search for the image, found those videos at the top of my post, saw some comments on each saying it was AI. Then when I checked the YouTube account it was obvious they were using AI, and they especially like tiger cubs.

I'd seen the miniature peacock before, in an article on AI slop messing up Google Images so that AI image showed up at the top then if you searched for "peacock."

[SheltieLover]

16. Gawd more ai slop.

Last edited Tue Jun 10, 2025, 12:11 PM - Edit history (1)

[highplainsdem]

17. It's a cute image, but unfortunately it does become more AI slop when mislabeled as a photo, and

there are multiple hashtags on the Bluesky post in the OP calling it a photo.

The image shows a #Siberian-tiger cub #nature #photography #naturephotography #travel #love #photooftheday #instagood #naturelovers #landscape #beautiful #instagram #picoftheday #art #photo #travelphotography #wildlife #like #sunset #mountains #adventure #summer #flowers #follow #happy #sky #explore

The Bluesky account that's from - marvellousnature01.bsky.social - is posting a LOT of AI slop. Some of the posts are weirdly labeled "animal" in addition to the species name. Having so much AI slop there is an insult to nature and photography.

And whoever has the YouTube account the tiger cub image came from should be ashamed of themselves for posting AI stuff to try to trick people.

I won't call them an AI artist. No talent or skill of any type was involved, beyond rejecting video with more obvious flaws. The only reason that tiger cub image is as cute as it is - and it is cute - is that the company that made the image generator stole so many millions of images, both photos and artwork, and those included a lot of photographs and paintings of tiger cubs from people with real talent, and the AI user had video cobbled together from all that training data until that tiny video clip showed up, without any too-obvious AI flaws.

[SheltieLover]

20. I agree it is very cute. I just don't like wondering whether something is ai.

[Emile]

23. Wow, beautiful cat.