Yes.
Here are
wav files of lions purring.
Obviously, they aren’t heard to do so as often as house cats. As wild animals, they are not generally relaxed in the presence of humans, like ouse cats are.
Kitter is an attempt to be cute.
It’s also a nickname I gave to an Online friend.
I’ve seen natures shows that have recorded lions and tigers (not bears) purring especially moms with their babes.
More anecdotal evidence:
We have a cat that we adopted off of the street. He doesn’t really count as feral; we’re pretty sure he had a family that threw him out on the street. He is a purring machine, but purrs especially loudly when we’re doing things to him that he doesn’t want done: putting him in a carrier for the vet, stuffing medicines down his throat, things like that. It seems to be his way of pleading with us.
He also purred quite a bit immediately after he’d been hit by a car, though the pain must have been incredible. He still managed to walk home, and survived with only the loss of an eye.
Most cats I’ve had need a little “work” (a good pet or scratch) to make them purr. Our newest kitty, though, will purr in anticipation. When she wants to play, or have some of your treat, she will purr as if to say “make me happy, please! please! this is how happy I’ll be if you give me some of your tuna.”
um, am I the only one who got a security warning from their firewall/virus protection software indicating a trojan when they clicked on the first wave file download icon?
Thanks for the replies everyone. It seems that although we typically associate purring with contentedness, it can cover a whole range of behaviors.