The owner of a supercar surpassed the Internet meme about a cat

The richer streets of the Middle East are a traffic jam of supercars where ferrari, Bugatti Veyrons и Lamborghini as common as Corollas in an Australian parking lot.

So how does a status millionaire stand out in this crowd? By adding cats to the house and posting their photos on social networks. And we're not talking about your usual internet cat meme. These are lions, tigers, cheetahs and leopards.

The king of cars is Humaid Al BuKaish, who has over 425,000 Instagram followers hungry for shots of his menagerie of big cats and exotic supercars adorned with his own close-ups and in person next to those claws. posture teeth.

And while he doesn't seem to care about the scratches on his body, he's even less worried about the same fate that befell his supercar collection. Several of his photographs show his pets climbing cars, often joined by their owner.

His photographs are egregious enough to dispel any suspicion of illegal keeping of big cats, a problem that has recently arisen in the Middle East, with more than 200 confiscated annually in the United Arab Emirates alone.

Al-Buqaish's social media profiles make no mention of what he does for a living, but the license plates on his cars are mostly from Sharjah, the third richest of the wealthy Emirates. And judging by the low numbers on the license plates - a local sign of traditional status, not just money - he is a young sheikh and possibly part of the constitutional monarchy of the Al-Qasimi dynasty, which has ruled there since 1972.

What's clear is that when it comes to cat photos online, everyone else might as well pack their cameras, phones, and tablets. AlBuQaish is the winner, all paws down.

This reporter on Twitter: @KarlaPincott