Hello little antelope, would you like to play with us?
Coming from three deadly cheetahs, it's the kind of invitation that's best refused - but amazingly, this impala escaped unscathed from its encounter.
Luckily for the youngster, it seems these three male cheetahs simply weren't hungry.
No claws for alarm: Astonishingly, these cheetahs, whose instinct is to hunt for food, decide to play with this baby impala
And that seems to be the secret to the antelope's survival, as it's likely it fell into the cheetahs' clutches when they were already full - and tired out - from an earlier hunt.
Photographer Michel Denis-Huot, who captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya's Masai Mara in October last year, said he was astounded by what he saw.
'These three brothers have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old,' he said. 'On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together.
Sticking your neck out: Oblivious to the danger, the impala appears to return the affection to the cheetahs
New found friends: The new-found friends part with a farewell lick
'At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily.'
Sprint finish: Impala is off the menu as the youngster makes its exit
Even more extraordinarily, this story has a happy ending - after one tense moment when it looked as though one cheetah would bite the impala on the neck, the youngster ran away.
Let's hope it didn't tell all its friends how nice those big, scarylooking cheetahs really are when you get to know them.
