Cat Family

E

Vocalizations

Cats produce a wide variety of sounds that can communicate aggression, threats, or fear. Other vocal sounds occur in social contact or invitations to mating, or are used to announce territory. All cats can spit, hiss, growl, snarl, and produce a mewing sound, sometimes as a loud call. Most cats can purr, including cheetahs and pumas. Whether the big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars purr is not known for certain, however. Cats purr by moving muscles in the voice box and the diaphragm as the animal breathes in and out.

Most of the big cats can roar. In roaring cats, the hyoid bone that supports the tongue is not completely made of bone as in other cats. Instead, the hyoid is partly cartilage and attaches to flexible ligaments, an arrangement thought to allow deep vibrations to be generated in the throat. Roaring is common in lions, leopards, and jaguars. Tigers can also roar but do not use grunts along with roars to produce a roaring sequence the way the other big cats do. The snow leopard is not reported to roar, although it has the same type of hyoid bone as the roaring cats. The clouded leopard and the cheetah have solid or ossified hyoid bones that cannot generate a roar. Pumas also cannot roar but females sometimes produce a loud scream, which may help attract a mate.

IV

Hunting and Diet

Cats are often called hypercarnivores, meaning they eat meat protein to the near exclusion of other foods. Protein sources include meat from mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, but also insects and other invertebrates. Unlike dogs and bears, the molar teeth of cats are not designed to grind plant material. Nonetheless, lions and leopards reportedly eat melons and cucumbers to obtain water. Domestic cats eat grass, which may contain needed vitamins. The margay is said to eat fruit on occasion. Studies suggest cats lack taste buds specialized for detecting sweetness. However, their taste receptors for amino acids are very complex, meaning they likely detect qualities in meat that humans cannot.

Cats are superbly designed for hunting, and generally hunt alone. Most cats hunt in dim light, but they may also hunt in the dark and in the daylight. Most commonly, cats rely on stealth to approach intended prey, often using foliage or grass for cover, followed by a rush or leap from ambush. Other tactics used by lions and other large cats include causing panic in a herd of animals, then singling out a young individual or an adult that appears slower or weaker. Cats typically need to overpower or injure the prey before they can kill it. Lions can use their claws and bites on the hindquarters of prey such as a zebra or large antelope. Cheetahs may trip running prey with a paw swipe to a hind leg.

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Cats typically kill smaller prey by snapping the animal’s neck, often with a bite to the top of the neck. Larger prey is subdued and killed by a bite to the underside of the neck that apparently pinches off the blood flow to the brain or strangles the windpipe. The extinct saber-toothed cats may have used their huge canines to slash through neck arteries or to slice the windpipe of victims.

Cats are also opportunistic meat-eaters. Large cats often steal the kill of smaller predators, including other types of cats. A pride of lions can chase off a pack of hyenas from a kill and will also take a kill from a leopard or cheetah. Cats also scavenge, but cannot easily crack open heavy bones to obtain marrow. Other predators not in the cat family such as hyenas and, to a lesser degree, wolves, can use strong crushing teeth to break up bones.

Cats are often thought of as animals that avoid water, but many species willingly wade into water to catch fish and invertebrate prey. Jaguars, leopards, and tigers often swim to cross bodies of water when hunting. Some smaller cats such as the fishing cat and jaguarundi commonly enter water.

V

Social Behavior

Most members of the cat family are solitary and establish home territories after they leave their mothers. This behavior helps to spread the range of cats. Cats typically avoid other members of their species except during courtship and mating.

Except in lions, females raise their young alone. The age at which cubs leave their mother depends on the size of the cat. In the larger species, the young stay with their mothers for many months after weaning to learn hunting skills. They typically remain in their mother’s territory for a time afterward even if they begin to hunt alone. For example, a young tiger may share its mother’s territory until it reaches the age of 18 to 30 months, or until its mother has a new cub.

The striking exception to this pattern is the lion, which lives in groups called prides. A pride consists of a group of closely related females—often mothers, sisters, and daughters—who hunt and raise cubs together. One or more male lions protect the pride and have mating rights. Other males may drive off or kill the ruling male and take over the pride. Two or more male lions may live and hunt together as a coalition, sometimes as heads of a pride. Two or three male cheetahs sometimes form coalitions and hunt together, but female cheetahs remain solitary, only accompanied by their own cubs.

VI

Reproduction

Members of the cat family are territorial, and males and females typically maintain their own home ranges in the wild. In some species, a number of females maintain separate territories within the larger territory of a single male. Before a female enters estrus and becomes fertile, she makes her desire to mate known with scent marks and calls. Males attracted to the female enter her territory but are not allowed to mate immediately, and typically have to wait a few days for the female to be ready. If more than one male arrives, the males may fight for mating rights. Courtship requires persistence from the male, who is usually met at first with resistance from the female. Playful, ritualized fighting often occurs between a male and a female, which helps stimulate the partners. Females may even bite or attack a male, but the male suitor does not retaliate.

In many cats, the receptive female lies with her belly flat on the ground and is mounted by the male. During mating, a male may bite the loose fur on the back of the female’s neck. Copulation is usually repeated many times, which appears to help stimulate the female to ovulate.

The gestation period after fertilization varies according to the size of the cat, with about 100 days being average for the largest cats, 80 days for the medium-size ocelot, and 65 days for the domestic cat. The number of young born also varies, sometimes based on availability of food. The ocelot and closely related cats usually have one kitten. Other smaller cats may have two or three young in a litter. The wildcat and its descendant the domestic cat typically have three or four kittens at a time. The big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars may have one to four cubs. Cheetahs may have from four to eight cubs.

Kittens and cubs are born blind. They feed on milk for an extended period until their mothers introduce them to meat. Mother cats often supply stunned or slightly injured prey to their offspring to help them learn to kill and to hunt.

VII

Evolution of Cats

A

Origin and Early Forms of Cats

The cat family is part of the Carnivora, a group of meat-eating mammals that originated during the Eocene Epoch. The earliest members of the Carnivora were small animals such as Miacis, a primitive predator that may have resembled a weasel or a civet. Miacis is thought to be a common ancestor to cats, dogs, bears, and other carnivores. During the Eocene carnivores evolved into two separate branches, with one branch being more closely related to cats and another branch more closely related to dogs. As a result, cats are genetically closer to hyenas and civets than they are to dogs, bears, raccoons, and weasels.

The first ancestors identifiable as cats appeared about 35 million years ago during the Oligocene Epoch as relatively small animals with more teeth than modern felids. About 20 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch the cat family split into to two distinct groups—one that led to the modern cats and another that led to the now extinct saber-toothed cats.

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