After rumours circulated this week that a Chinese zoo had tried to pass off a 'man in a suit' as a sun bear because of its human-like posture, many were left red-faced when the zoo denied the accusations and it became clear that the animal in a suspicious-looking photo was likely a real sun bear.

However, the wild theory may not have been completely unfounded, as a resurfaced video of a wildlife centre in the Sichuan province suggests.

Instead of a human being passed off as a bear, a clip from the Yuanjiashan Zoo in Xichang shows a Golden Retriever dog which appears to be being passed off as a lion.

The footage, which was filmed in March 2021 by a baffled father who had taken his child to visit the African lion enclosure, shows the pooch behind a cage.

Joking that the animal looked 'familiar', the father, whose surname was Tang, sarcastically joked that he wasn't convinced the creature before him was an African lion - and wondered if it 'hadn't grown up' yet.