| Arabian wildcat | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Arabian wildcat at Olomouc Zoo | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Subfamily: | Felinae |
| Genus: | Felis |
| Species: | |
| Subspecies: | F. l. lybica |
| Trinomial name | |
| Felis lybica lybica Forster, 1780 | |
The Arabian wildcat (Felis lybica lybica), [1] also called Gordon's wildcat is a wildcat subspecies that inhabits the Arabian Peninsula.
Felis silvestris gordoni was the scientific name proposed by David Harrison in 1968 for a wildcat collected in Oman's Al Batinah Region. [2] Discovered and named by Sandy Gordon, hence the name Gordon’s wild-cat. The Arabian wildcat's taxonomic status has been debated since the 1990s:
The Arabian wildcat is quite similar to a domestic cat in size and appearance. Its fur is short and dense, greyish-brown, ash grey or buff, with dark markings on the head and dark banding on the body, limbs and near the tip of the tail. The underparts are whitish, and there are black hairs between the black pads on the soles of the feet. [5]
This cat is endemic to northern Oman and parts of the United Arab Emirates. Its typical habitat is semidesert areas with rock and scrub where males maintain a territory which may measure several square km, and females a rather smaller territory. [5]
The Arabian wildcat is nocturnal; it is a solitary animal and has several dens, rock crevices, hollow trees or empty fox burrows, into which it can retreat in different parts of its territory. It feeds on jerboas, jirds and other small rodents, small birds, reptiles and large insects, obtaining most of its fluid needs from its food. It is fierce and agile. Breeding takes place at most times of year. [6] The male is drawn to the female by the pheromones she produces when she is sexually receptive. The gestation period is about sixty-five days and the litter size is usually three or four kittens. The young have spotted coats at first and are weaned after two or three months, but stay with their mother for several months more to learn hunting and survival skills. [5]
The range of the Arabian wildcat is small and it is one of the most threatened subspecies of wildcat. Historically persecuted by the Bedouin, [7] its habitat is now increasingly being degraded for agricultural purposes. The most serious threat it faces may be that it hybridises with feral domestic cats, and there may be few purebred Arabian wildcats remaining in the wild. With this in mind, a captive breeding program was started in 1986 in Abu Dhabi, and other cats have been relocated to California and Germany, with an international studbook being kept at Cologne Zoological Garden. [8]
Felis is a genus of small and medium-sized cat species native to most of Africa and south of 60° latitude in Europe and Asia to Indochina. The genus includes the domestic cat. The smallest Felis species is the black-footed cat with a head and body length from 38 to 42 cm. The largest is the jungle cat with a head and body length from 62 to 76 cm.
The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat and the African wildcat. The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while the African wildcat inhabits semi-arid landscapes and steppes in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, into western India and western China. The wildcat species differ in fur pattern, tail, and size: the European wildcat has long fur and a bushy tail with a rounded tip; the smaller African wildcat is more faintly striped, has short sandy-gray fur and a tapering tail; the Asiatic wildcat is spotted.
The sand cat is a small wild cat that inhabits sandy and stony deserts far from water sources. With its sandy to light grey fur, it is well camouflaged in a desert environment. Its head-and-body length ranges from 39–52 cm (15–20 in) with a 23–31 cm (9.1–12.2 in) long tail. Its 5–7 cm (2.0–2.8 in) short ears are set low on the sides of the head, aiding detection of prey moving underground. The long hair covering the soles of its paws insulates its pads against the extremely hot and cold temperatures in deserts.
The Chinese mountain cat, also known as Chinese desert cat and Chinese steppe cat, is a small wild cat endemic to western China that has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2002, as there may be fewer than 10,000 breeding adults in the wild.
The Felinae are a subfamily of the family Felidae. This subfamily comprises the small cats having a bony hyoid, because of which they are able to purr but not roar.
The Cretan wildcat is a member of the genus Felis that inhabits the Greek island of Crete. Its taxonomic status is unclear at present, as some biologists consider it probably introduced, or a European wildcat, or a hybrid between European wildcat and domestic cat. It was previously considered a separate subspecies of wildcat as Felis silvestris cretensis.
The European wildcat is a small wildcat species native to continental Europe, Scotland, Turkey and the Caucasus. It inhabits forests from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Central and Eastern Europe to the Caucasus. Its fur is brownish to grey with stripes on the forehead and on the sides and has a bushy tail with a black tip. It reaches a head-to-body length of up to 65 cm (26 in) with a 34.5 cm (13.6 in) long tail, and weighs up to 7.5 kg (17 lb).
The Asiatic wildcat, also known as the Asian steppe wildcat and the Indian desert cat, is an African wildcat subspecies that occurs from the eastern Caspian Sea north to Kazakhstan, into western India, western China and southern Mongolia. There is no information on current status or population numbers across the Asiatic wildcat's range as a whole, but populations are thought to be declining.
The African wildcat is a small wildcat species with sandy grey fur, pale vertical stripes on the sides and around the face. It is native to Africa, West and Central Asia, and is distributed to Rajasthan in India and Xinjiang in China. It inhabits a broad variety of landscapes ranging from deserts to savannas, shrublands and grasslands.
The Sardinian wildcat is an isolated population of feral cats on the island of Sardinia, introduced during the Roman Empire. It has historically been misidentified as a species of lynx or a subspecies of wildcat.
The Pampas cat is a small wild cat native to South America. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List as habitat conversion and destruction may cause the population to decline in the future.
The Corsican wildcat is an isolated feral cat population that used to be considered a subspecies of the African wildcat, but is now thought to have been introduced to Corsica around the beginning of the first millennium.
The Caucasian wildcat is a European wildcat subspecies that inhabits the Caucasus Mountains and Turkey.
Felis chaus chaus is the nominate subspecies of the jungle cat.
Felis chaus fulvidina is a jungle cat subspecies. The mammal collector of the Natural History Museum Oldfield Thomas described the first jungle cat from Indochina in 1928.
Felis margarita thinobia, known as the Turkestan sand cat, Arabian sand cat, and Pakistan sand cat, is a sand cat subspecies native to deserts in the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia.
Felis lunensis, or the Martelli's cat is an extinct felid of the subfamily Felinae.
The Scottish wildcat is a European wildcat population in Scotland. It was once widely distributed across Great Britain, but the population has declined drastically since the turn of the 20th century due to habitat loss and persecution. It is now limited to northern and eastern Scotland. Camera-trapping surveys carried out in the Scottish Highlands between 2010 and 2013 revealed that wildcats live foremost in mixed woodland, whereas feral and domestic cats were photographed mostly in grasslands.
The Southern African wildcat is an African wildcat subspecies native to Southern and Eastern Africa. In 2007, it was tentatively recognised as a distinct subspecies on the basis of genetic analysis. Morphological evidence indicates that the split between the African wildcat subspecies in Africa occurred in the area of Tanzania and Mozambique.
The domestic cat originated from Near-Eastern and Egyptian populations of the African wildcat, Felis sylvestris lybica. The family Felidae, to which all living feline species belong, arose about ten to eleven million years ago. This family is divided into eight major phylogenetic lineages. The domestic cat is a member of the Felis lineage. A number of investigations have shown that all domestic varieties of cats come from a single species of the Felis lineage, Felis catus. Variations of this lineage are found all over the world, and until recently scientists have had a hard time pinning down exactly which region gave rise to modern domestic cat breeds. Scientists believed that it was not just one incident that led to the domesticated cat but multiple, independent incidents at different places that led to these breeds. More complications arose from the fact that the wildcat population as a whole is very widespread and very similar to one another. These variations of wildcat can and will interbreed freely with one another when in close contact, further blurring the lines between taxa. Recent DNA studies, advancement in genetic technologies, and a better understanding of DNA and genetics as a whole has helped make discoveries in the evolutionary history of the domestic cat. Archaeological evidence has documented earlier dates of domestication than formerly believed.
Sinai Bedouins apparently used burrow traps as late as the 1950s to kill the animal they perceived as a constant threat to livestock.