Cat Family

I

Introduction

Cat Family, group of carnivorous (meat-eating) mammals considered the most highly developed for killing live prey. Intelligence, acute senses, and agile bodies make cats expert predators. Wild members of the cat family are found worldwide except in Australia and Antarctica. The family includes powerful big cats such as the lion, the leopard, and the tiger, as well as the rugged puma and the high-speed cheetah, along with many smaller, secretive hunters such as the caracal, the ocelot, and the wildcat. The domestic cat, a direct descendent of a small wildcat, has lived alongside humans for thousands of years. Also in the cat family are the now extinct saber-toothed cats.

Since prehistoric times, humans have both feared and revered members of the cat family. Their special combination of physical power and ferocity, along with grace and beauty, have earned cats a prominent place in the art, literature, religion, and symbolism of many cultures. In the modern world, however, many wild members of the cat family are threatened with extinction because of hunting by humans and habitat loss. Only the domestic cat thrives everywhere, numbering over 600 million worldwide.

Scientists recognize more than 30 species of living cats but have not agreed definitively on how to classify some of these species under genus names. The scientific name for the cat family is Felidae, and cats are often called felids.

II

Habitat and Range

Cats are found in nearly all natural environments. For example, lynxes live in the icy cold of the Arctic tundra and snow leopards in the high mountains of Asia, whereas sand cats are found in the heat of African deserts and jaguars in the humid tropical rain forests of the Americas. The majority of cat species inhabit forest and woodland environments. Although most cat species are best suited for a particular habitat such as forests or grasslands, a few cats such as the leopard and the puma are highly adaptable, and may even live close to human settlements. Cats are active year-round and do not hibernate.

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Tropical Asia is home to the greatest number of cat species, including both the biggest—the tiger—and the smallest—the rusty-spotted cat. Only two wild species of cats survive in Europe, the lynx and the wildcat. The cat with the greatest north-to-south geographical range is the puma, found in the Americas as far north as British Columbia and as far south as Chile. The leopard has the widest geographical range of all, spanning much of Africa and Asia, as well as parts of the Middle East. The only cat found in both Eurasia and North America is the lynx.

Twelve cats live in the western hemisphere: Geoffroy’s cat, the jaguar, the jaguarundi, the kodkod, the little spotted cat (also known as the tigrina or oncilla), the lynx, the bobcat, the margay, the Andes mountain cat, the ocelot, the pampas cat, and the puma (also known as the cougar or mountain lion).

III

Physical Description

A

Anatomy

All members of the cat family share a very similar body structure. They have characteristically short faces and small, broad skulls, designed to anchor powerful jaw muscles. Their strong jaws do almost no grinding. Food is cut and chopped with a tooth formation of three pairs of incisors, one pair of canines, two or three pairs of premolars, and one pair of molars in the upper and lower jaws. The molars are modified as formidable shearing teeth, or carnassials, that work together to scrape and cut flesh. The canines in modern cats are conical and pointed. The extinct saber-toothed cats had extremely long and flattened canines, designed for stabbing and slicing. A cat’s tongue is covered with sharp, backward-slanted projections, or papillae, which help clean the flesh from the bones of animal prey.

All cats are digitigrades—they walk on their toes with the back part of the foot raised. The forefeet have five toes and the hindfeet have four. The paws are well padded. The claws are long, sharp, and, with the exception of the cheetah, completely retractile—they can be drawn in so the paw can be used without scratching or ripping. Claws can be used for grasping prey, for slashing, or in climbing.

Cats have relatively long legs, but their legs are proportionately shorter than in most members of the dog family. Cats are also much better at climbing and leaping than are members of the dog family. As a rule, members of the dog family are better built for long-distance, high-stamina running while most cats are designed for sprinting or for rushing prey from ambush. The cheetah is a specialized exception designed for high-speed running, qualifying as the fastest mammal on Earth.

The skeletons of cats have relatively flexible backbones, an aid in leaping, climbing, and running. Most cats also have long tails, used for balance when leaping, running, or making swift turns. The cat with the longest tail is the snow leopard, which climbs on steep rocky ledges. The puma, the jaguarundi, and the cheetah also have very long tails. A few types of cats have shortened tails, including the jungle cat and the fishing cat. The lynx and the bobcat have very short “bob” tails. Many saber-tooths also had very short tails.

B

Size

Male cats are typically larger than females. Body size can vary greatly within certain species such as leopards, pumas, and jaguars. Members of populations in certain geographical regions may be larger or weigh much more than typical individuals of the same species that live elsewhere.

The biggest living species of cat is the tiger. The largest males can weigh up to 258 kg (570 lb), exceeding the largest male lions. The smallest cats include the rusty-spotted cat and the kodkod, which are about half the size of a domestic cat when fully grown. Unlike breeds of the domestic dog, which range in size from tiny toy varieties to giant mastiffs and Saint Bernards, breeds of the domestic cat are all very similar in size.

The largest of all cats is the tiger-lion hybrid called a “liger,” the offspring of a tiger mother and a lion father. Such giant hybrids are not known in nature but sometimes occur in captivity when lions and tigers are housed together. Because of a genetic oddity, a liger can grow to twice the size of a normal tiger. The hybrid of a tiger father and a lion mother is called a tigon or tiglon, but it grows no larger than either parent.

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