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There are twenty-six species
of small wild cats
belonging to the same group or genus as the domestic cat, being
all names Felis, and these, together with three species
of Lynx, six species of large cats (Panthera), and
the cheetah (Acinonyx), make up the family of the Felidae.
With the exception of the cheetah, the felids are a contiguous
group of meat-eaters which are all recognizable as belonging to
the same family of mammal. They all have long legs, short faces,
and sleek, athletic bodies with beautiful coats. In addition,
they can all retract their claws, have a keenly developed sense
of smell, and they all purr. With the exception of the lion, all
the felids are solitary hunters, kill rather small prey, and usually
hunt at night. Interestingly, the lion is the most social of the
felids, and lives and hunts in a family group which we call a
"pride".
How have cats survived so
long?? The answer
lies in the fact that there is virtually only one mainstay of
the cat's diet…and that is meat. Fresh meat killed by their
mother or themselves is the only item on the feline diet, and
that means survival for them is no easy matter. Their food is
not found on trees, waiting to be eaten. Nature has supplied the
cat with the intelligence, courage, and speed to become and to
stay the fabulous hunter that it needs to be to survive. Hunting
preoccupies a cat almost from birth. When one observes young kittens
playing, they are play-acting hunting. The process of hunting
means more than the food victory of the hunt, because a cat can
hunt without eating, but cannot eat without hunting.
It is now thought that because
the diet of the cat has remained the same for
eons of time, this may explain why the thirty two species of the
family of cats resemble each other so closely, with the exception
of their size and the traits necessary for appropriate camouflage.
Cats have had no reason to change! Excellent hunters since the
lynx-like "Ur-cat" of the Miocene from whom the
modern cats descend, the cats have had no need to adjust their
bodies or their diets in response to major changes in the world's
climate. This is because the diets of the cats didn't change.
To a cat, a fish who eats algae, a bird who eats berries, and
a giraffe who eats acacias are all meat for the hunting. So, while
the glaciers came and went, while the vegetarians struggled to
try to digest new plants and adapt themselves to overwhelming
global changes, the cats simply kept on hunting, waiting to pounce
on whatever managed to survive into the next epoch. It is the
same limber body of the cat that hunted successfully in the Pliocene
that hunts successfully today.
Because eating meat is so
vital to the cat's survival, being a carnavore has contributed greatly to the evolution of the cat's physical appearance and personality.
The cat since ancient times has had dagger-like eyeteeth for fastening
firmly onto prey, and strong, triangular cheek teeth which are
capable of severing the victim's spine and shearing the flesh
into bite-sized chunks that the cat can swallow. Meat-eating has
also caused the cat to have a short intestinal tract, since meat
is easy to digest and doesn't require a long, heavy gut (which
would only weigh the cat down, slowing his ability to pounce and
preventing him from hunting as effectively). Meat-eating also
explains the short digestive period, the rapid passage of food
through the cat, and the nutritional residue in a cat's feces.
This is a main reason why cats are so concerned with burying their
feces, and they never mark with feces at home, only with sprays
of urine.
Even more than the physical
characteristics which will always continue to develop over time due to its meat-eating nature, the
cat's emotions are deeply linked to this strong instinct to survive
by eating meat. Many expressions of a cat's feelings seem extremely
closely related to the capture of live prey. An excited, happy
or relieved cat may ambush and pounce on whatever triggers its
pleasure…something most Bengal cat owners have experienced!
A committed meat-eater may even express affection or gratitude
toward his or her prey, which can be very touching as the cat
is instinctively recognizing and appreciating that animal protein
is its only source of food.
What is it that caused there
to be some thirty-five different species of the cat,
when they are all so basically similar? It is now thought that
because cats have always roamed, and that, in prehistoric times,
it was possible to cross land bridges to roam all the continents
freely, which is difficult for us to imagine today.
Like their distant relatives
the modern lynxes, the lynx-like Ur-Cats, (Pseudaelurus), probably lived in
forests, and are assumed to have hunted large rodents and ground
nesting birds. When the pressures of different habitats created
changes in the Ur-Cat's bodies, the ocelots branched from the
parent stem in South America about ten million years ago, and
along with other little spotted mouse-catchers of the New World
jungles, became known as the ocelot lineage.
Meanwhile, in the Old World,
tabbies appeared that were colored to blend in with shadowy forests, and they were also wild cats. In the
large, long-haired form, they were called "Felis sylvestris"
(for the forests of Europe), and the smaller, short-haired form
was known as "Felis sylvestris lybica" (for the
forests of North Africa). Even when the forests of Africa turned
to desert, the still-camouflaged African wildcats stayed on, hunting
mice, and became often housecats, "Felis sylvestris catus".
Thus, just as it is thought that humans first originated in Africa,
so did our cats, and today those African wildcats and their domestic
cousins are known as the domestic cat lineage.
Mother Tigress carrying her young cub to safety
There is still some controversy
over the origin of the "pantherines". One version puts the pantherines in the New World with a wildcat
ancestor that grew larger, but not as large as the saber-toothed
tiger which was already living in the New World. It makes sense
that the pantherine would evolve to become large enough to hunt
deer when they were available, but small enough to still hunt
rabbits and smaller prey when that was necessary for survival.
The result was the puma, which is really nothing more than a small
cat grown to large proportions. Pumas purr loud and long like
house cats, and also crouch above their food.
Cheetahs are often thought
of as African, while pumas are thought of as American; yet the two cats have much in common. Because the cheetah hunted
in the open plains, and the puma hunted in stealth in thick forest
and tall grass, the two cats were not in competition and were
able to live together in the New World. Cheetahs and pumas make
trilling sounds, and chirps like birdcalls, and can also whistle,
and they both have pupils that stay round and do not form slits
like the pupils of wildcats or house cats. Both these cats have
extremely long, heavy tails to give them balance, and both are
extremely fast and rely on long-distance vision using high places
as lookouts for their information. Pumas and cheetahs give birth
to three or four cubs at a time, usually in a secluded cave-like
area.
The other members of the
pantherine lineage are the lynxes, who are the heirs-apparent to the modern day house cats. There
have been many types of lynxes that have appeared over time, one
of which, an Asiatic lynx, spread both west and east. In the east,
there was an already established lynx called the bobcat, and today
in Canada and parts of the United States, the two kinds of lynxes
live side by side. Perhaps the ferocity of the bobcat is due to
centuries of hardship…we may never know the answer to that
frequently asked question.
It is the lynx family that
gave rise to what we now refer to as the "big cats": the lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars of the genus "Panthera".
Like the lynxes, all the big cats are spotted, for at least part
of their lives. But what about tigers? Actually, the stripes of
the tiger are said to really be elongated spots, as on certain
tigers it can be seen that the stripe is conspicuously open in
the center, revealing it to be what it is, a leopard's rosette in a
greatly elongated form.
About two million years ago,
the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) appeared,
and the big cats evolved in increasingly larger sizes to hunt
increasingly larger prey. Most of the big cats were very successful
at establishing their colonies. In the Old World, the leopards
were quite widespread, while in the New World, the jaguar managed
to colonize most of the forested areas in the Americas except
in the far north, thus competing with the deer-sized prey with
the puma.
Lions are the most recent
of the Pantheras, evolving on the savannahs of Africa only some 700,000 years ago. Until
very recently, lions were everywhere that there were no glaciers,
including North and South America, all across Asia, down into
India, Europe and the British Isles, the Middle East and all into
Africa. The northernmost lions were enormous, and known as cave
lions, with the longer hair necessary to survive the Ice Age.
They have only recently become extinct.
Interestingly, lions and
tigers are so similar in size and shape that it is difficult to tell the difference in their skeletal
remains, and can interbreed successfully although they don't usually do
that in nature. Tigers not only have recognizable social units
but also sometimes live together in small groups, usually consisting
of a mother and two or three of her full-sized, but not quite
adult young. Sometimes, even mature males will join these groups.
A close look at a stunning young white male Lion
By the middle of the Pleistocene,
cats of all sizes lived all over the world (with the exception of Australia), managing to adjust so perfectly to each other by
keeping distance between them, and hunting different prey that
they co-existed quite well.
Of particular interest to
Bengal Cat lovers is the small Asian Leopard Cat, which has one of the widest geographical spread ranges of any of the Asian species of wild cat. Asia is the largest and most diverse of the
world's continents, and covers almost one third of the total land
mass of the earth today. Climate conditions in Asia range from
the cold of the Arctic tundra to the wet monsoon areas of India
and Burma, and south of the continent, the humid Rain Forests
around the equator. The central area of the Asian land mass if
dominated by a highland plateau region which contains many of
the word's highest mountains. It is only natural that this incredible
diversity is equaled by the many types of plant materials and
wildlife which inhabit it.
The Leopard Cat can be found
from parts of Pakistan to the west of its range,
all across South East Asia to the east, and down through to the
Philippine Islands. As a result of this broad range of territory,
a large number of sub-species have evolved, with extreme differences
in size, coloration and markings, as discussed earlier in this
article which are necessary to survive. There is also much controversy
as to whether certain sub-species should or should not be re-classified
as separate species in their own right. The "Iriomote
Cat" is one example which many people believe should
be classified as a sub-species of the Leopard Cat "Prionailurus
bengalensis iriomotensis", while others would put it
as a separate species in the genus "Prionailurus".
This may help explain the differences in markings, and names attached
to various Leopard Cat photos and articles.
Usually found in forested
or wooded areas, there are also Leopard Cats found
in grasslands and desert areas that adjoin the forested areas.
The main prey of the Leopard Cat is primarily small rodents; however
they also hunt small birds and mammals, fish, insects, reptiles
and amphibians. Generally, the Leopard Cat hunts by itself, at
night, although it also hunts during the day as required.
And of course we
must make a special mention of the unique and beautiful 35-50 pound African Serval Cat, widely
recognized for their friendly natures; along with cheetahs, servals are probably the most comfortable
of the wild cats with living in close promixity to humans. One of the newer hybrid cats being developed is the Savannah Cat,
which is derived from the African Serval, crossed with domestic cats.
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