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 of the seven 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 jungle cat, also called reed cat and swamp cat, is a medium-sized cat native from the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Caucasus to parts of Central, South and Southeast Asia. It inhabits foremost wetlands like swamps, littoral and riparian areas with dense vegetation. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, and is mainly threatened by destruction of wetlands, trapping and poisoning.
The black-footed cat, also called the small-spotted cat, is the smallest wild cat in Africa, having a head-and-body length of 35–52 cm (14–20 in). Despite its name, only the soles of its feet are black or dark brown. With its bold small spots and stripes on the tawny fur, it is well camouflaged, especially on moonlit nights. It bears black streaks running from the corners of the eyes along the cheeks, and its banded tail has a black tip.
The Chinese mountain cat, also known as Chinese desert cat and Chinese steppe cat, is a small wild Felis species with sand-coloured fur, faint dark stripes on the face and legs and black tipped ears. It is endemic to the Tibetan Plateau of western China, where it lives in grassland above elevations of 2,500 m (8,200 ft). It has been listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2002.
The serval is a wild cat native to Africa. It is widespread in sub-Saharan countries, except rainforest regions. Across its range, it occurs in protected areas, and hunting it is either prohibited or regulated in range countries.
The Barbary lion was a population of the lion subspecies Panthera leo leo. It was also called North African lion, Atlas lion and Egyptian lion. It lived in the mountains and deserts of the Maghreb of North Africa from Morocco to Egypt. It was eradicated following the spread of firearms and bounties for shooting lions. A comprehensive review of hunting and sighting records revealed that small groups of lions may have survived in Algeria until the early 1960s, and in Morocco until the mid-1960s. Today, it is locally extinct in this region. Fossils of the Barbary lion dating to between 100,000 and 110,000 years were found in the cave of Bizmoune near Essaouira.
The African leopard is the nominate subspecies of the leopard, native to many countries in Africa. It is widely distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa, but the historical range has been fragmented in the course of habitat conversion. Leopards have also been recorded in North Africa as well.
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, Great Britain, Turkey and 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.
Panthera leo melanochaita is a lion subspecies in Southern and East Africa. In this part of Africa, lion populations are regionally extinct in Lesotho, Djibouti and Eritrea, and are threatened by loss of habitat and prey base, killing by local people in retaliation for loss of livestock, and in several countries also by trophy hunting. Since the turn of the 21st century, lion populations in intensively managed protected areas in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe have increased, but declined in East African range countries. In 2005, a Lion Conservation Strategy was developed for East and Southern Africa.
The Corsican wildcat is an isolated cat population of uncertain taxonomic status that has been variously regarded as a separate species of its own, a subspecies of the African wildcat, or a population of feral house cats that were 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 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 Arabian wildcat, also called Gordon's wildcat is a wildcat subspecies that inhabits the Arabian Peninsula.
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, is theorized to have arisen about ten to eleven million years ago and is divided into eight major phylogenetic lineages. The Felis lineage in particular is the lineage to which the domestic cat belongs.
