NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat was plunged into an existential crisis on Tuesday after realizing he is in fact an animal, sources said.

The outspoken grey tabby was dozing at about 12:32 pm during his fourth nap of the day when he was roused by a moving truck’s loud backup beeper and the shouts of men carrying heavy objects.

Buddy padded over to the window and looked down.

“What’s this ruckus?!” he called down to the movers. “Between your loud truck and you guys yelling like a bunch of animals, how is anyone supposed to get any sleep around here?”

The men below burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Buddy demanded, his tail thumping the floor in annoyance.

“The pot calling the kettle black!” one of the men shouted back before disappearing around a corner with a large box in his hands.

After a quick search for the phrase on the internet, followed by a three-hour trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, a dejected Buddy collapsed into the couch while questioning his own existence.

“An animal?!?” he said aloud. “But I drink coffee! My research into quantum teleportation has been going so well! I don’t eat mouses and I’ve even stopped eating flies!”

The depressed feline was settling down for his fifth nap at press time, sources said, unaware that humans do not sleep 16 hours a day.

Buddy’s spirits were raised later in the day when, over a soundtrack of saccharine piano music, his human Big Buddy explained that humans are animals too.

“You think you’re a person,” Big Buddy said, “and who’s to say you’re not? Now can we cut the music? This isn’t Full House, and I’m not Bob Saget as Danny Tanner.”