An adorable mother deer has gone viral on TikTok after mistaking a woman’s crying newborn baby for her fawn.
In a viral clip, TikToker Ann (ann_ann_98) filmed her baby crying on a blanket set up on an outdoor porch while she tried to comfort him.
She then noticed something on the lawn that grabbed her attention: a mother deer rushing toward the sound of her newborn infant crying, entering the area with a sense of urgent haste.
“Oh nope, nope, nope. This is my baby. This one’s my baby,” Ann told the deer as she quickly covered her child and lifted him into her arms. “He’s not yours.”
Her child continued to cry, prompting the TikToker to shush him several times. The video then cuts to a later moment, showing Ann standing before the mother deer. As she fed her off-camera, she noticed another deer in her backyard.
It seems that the mother’s fawn was wandering around Ann’s yard. She filmed the young deer walking along the exterior wall of her home until he reached a corner, where he began sniffing the area.
Ann’s video has amassed over 7.3 million views and more than 1.5 million likes. In the comments, some TikTok users noted that fawns and human babies sound very similar when they cry.
“Have you heard a fawn cry? Because I thought someone left their baby in a field once and went running and it was a fawn,” one viewer shared. “I just looked up what baby deers sound like when they cry and I get why she was confused,” another said.
Others were impressed by how fast the mother deer reacted to the sound of Ann’s baby crying. “Her mama instincts kicked so fast,” one person wrote. “That mama was ready to throw hooves,” another quipped. “Motherhood is universal and that makes me cry,” a third added.
This is just the latest deer-related moment to go viral on TikTok after a man woke up to see a random deer in his bed.