ocelot
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Ocelot ( Leopardus pardalis ) |
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| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
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The ocelot ( Leopardus pardalis ) is a species of predator from the family of cats (Felidae) living in Central and South America . He is the largest and probably best-known representative of the leopard cats ( Leopardus ), a genus of smaller, spotted cats restricted to America .
Appearance
The basic color of the soft fur varies on the upper side from greyish to yellowish-brown to orange and differs depending on the habitat: Rainforest residents are more orange or ocher, while animals in the dry regions are mostly gray. The underside is always lighter, mostly whitish. The fur of the ocelots is covered with black, ring- to rosette-like spots, which are arranged in strips. The inside of the spots is a little darker than the basic color of the fur. The spots on the neck and shoulders go in stripes, on the legs in spots. The tail is also covered with spots, sometimes with ring-shaped stripes. Two black vertical stripes extend along the face, the fur is very light around the eyes and the muzzle. On the back of the ears, as with other cats, there is a single, white spot. The severity of the spots on the body is different for each animal, and the arrangement of the spots on the left and right halves of the body is often different.
Ocelots reach a head body length of 55 to 100 centimeters, the tail becomes 30 to 45 centimeters long. The weight of adult animals varies between 11.3 and 15.8 kilograms, with the males becoming slightly larger and heavier than the females.
The tooth formula of the ocelots is 3/3 - 1/1 - 2–3 / 2 - 1/1, which means that they have three incisors per half of the jaw , one canine , two or three (upper jaw) or two (lower jaw) anterior molars and a posterior molar , a total of 28 or 30 teeth. As with all cats, the fangs (the last upper premolar and the lower molar) as well as the canines enlarged to fangs are well developed.
Strong limb muscles enable good climbing. The front paws are larger than the rear paws. As with all cats, the front feet have five toes (one of which is off the ground) and the rear feet have four. All toes have retractable claws. As with all cats, the digestive tract is characterized by the simple stomach and short intestines . The ocelots have the most pronounced penis bones ( baculum ) in their family, which is generally regressed or absent in cats.
Distribution area and habitat
Ocelots live on the American continent , their range extends from the southern United States to northern Argentina . They also live on the island of Trinidad , but are absent from the rest of the West Indies . In the United States, they were once widespread from Arizona to Louisiana , and fossil finds from Florida indicate that they were even found throughout the southeast of the country in prehistoric times. Today they are restricted to the extreme south of Texas in the United States , but the population there is very small at around 100 animals. They are even more common in Central and South America , although their settlement area is increasingly restricted and fragmented through forest clearing and urban sprawl. The numerically largest populations are found today in the Amazon basin .
Ocelots can be found in various habitats, including tropical rain , mangrove and dry mountain forests up to 1200 meters. They are also found less frequently in bush-lined savannahs . However, they avoid areas that are too open, as they depend on dense vegetation for their hunting success and as a retreat.
Way of life
Activity time and social behavior
Ocelots are generally nocturnal solitary animals . When the sky is overcast or when the temperature is lower, they can sometimes go looking for food during the day, but usually spend the day sleeping in sheltered places. These can be tree hollows, dense bushes or even individual branches. The animals usually have several resting places in their territory and rarely use the same place on two consecutive days. Although, like most cats, ocelots are good climbers, they tend to hunt on the ground. If necessary, they can also swim well.
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The size of the territory is variable and depends, among other things, on gender and habitat: the territories of the males are usually significantly larger than those of the females, and the territory size is smaller in regions rich in food. The values for the territory size vary between 2 and 31 square kilometers, but mostly the animals stay in the core area of their territory, which is significantly smaller at 2 to 10 square kilometers. The territory of one male overlaps with that of several females, but the territories with those of same-sex conspecifics do not overlap either in males or females. The only exception to this rule are growing animals, which are tolerated for a while in the mother's territory.
The marking of hiking routes and territorial boundaries as well as contact with conspecifics takes place via optical and olfactory marks. Ocelots make scratches on tree trunks, mark objects with their urine and deposit their feces in conspicuous places . The territorial boundaries are vehemently defended against same-sex conspecifics, which can also lead to fights.
food
Ocelots mainly undertake nightly forays through their territory, during which they cover several kilometers per night and hunt their prey. The food of the ocelots consists primarily of vertebrates ; they prefer prey with a body weight of less than one kilogram. On mammals , they hunt rodents such as barbed rats , New World mice and tree spikes , opossum rats and cottontail rabbits ; Some of the larger animals they sometimes kill include coatis , howler monkeys , sloths , tamanduas and pintail deer . But even birds (for example Hokko- and Tinamous ), reptiles (such as lizards , turtles and snakes ), amphibians and fish are on the menu. To a small extent, they also consume invertebrates such as crabs and insects .
Reproduction
In the northernmost and southernmost areas of the distribution area, mating takes place in autumn, in the tropics there is probably no fixed time for mating. The solitary animals only come together for this purpose and after successful fertilization they go their separate ways again. The oestrus lasts around seven to ten days, at least in the warmer regions of their range, ocelots are polyestrial, so there can be several sexual cycles per year. After a gestation period of about 79 to 85 days, the female gives birth to one or two (rarely three) young.
At birth and for the first few weeks of rearing the young, the female builds a nest, which can be in a hollow tree trunk, in a crevice or in a small cave, or in thick vegetation. The rearing of the young is the sole responsibility of the female.
Young animals weigh around 200 to 280 grams at birth and are around 23 to 25 centimeters long. At around 14 days their eyes open, at three weeks they start to walk. They leave their nest for the first time at around four to six weeks and accompany their mother on her hunts, and at eight weeks they start eating solid food. They are finally discontinued after the third month of life.
The sexual maturity occurs in females with approximately 18 to 22 months, males at around 30 months. The mother tolerates the growing animals in her territory until they are around two to three years old, after which they have to establish their own territory.
Life expectancy and threats
Life expectancy in the wild is estimated at around ten years; in human care they can reach an age of over twenty years. Natural enemies include giant snakes , pumas , jaguars and harpies .
The greatest threat is currently the destruction of the habitat of the ocelots. Due to their need for protective vegetation and their rather low rate of reproduction, the animals are very sensitive to changes in the environment. Due to their large distribution area, the IUCN does not yet count them among the threatened species. Estimates of the total population amount to more than 50,000 animals, but the number is on the decline. The subspecies L. p deserves special attention . albescens , which is found only in southern Texas and northeastern Mexico and whose total population is estimated to be less than 250 animals. Traffic accidents are the main threat to this subspecies today. As a protective measure, for example, in Cameron County , Texas , the county with the highest ocelot population, the embankments along irrigation ditches are no longer mowed. This is intended to create significant game passes for the ocelot.
Systematics
Depending on the systematic view, the ocelot is one of seven to nine species of the genus of the leopard cats ( Leopardus - the scientific name only refers to the leopard-like markings, its closest relatives are the tiger or ocelot cat ( L. tigrinus ) and the long-tailed cat or Margay ( L. wiedii )). In human captivity, hybrids between the ocelot and the long-tailed cat, the tiger cat, the small-spotted cat , the Chilean forest cat and even the puma are known, but in the wild there should be no crossbreeding .
The relationship of the pardel cats to the other cats is, like so much in the cat system , not yet clarified beyond doubt. Some, especially older systematics, classify almost all cats into the genus Felis , so that Felis pardalis is sometimes used as a scientific name for the ocelot.
A total of ten subspecies of the ocelot were distinguished, which mainly differ from each other in the area of fur color:
- Leopardus pardalis albescens is native to Texas and northeastern Mexico .
- Leopardus pardalis sonoriensis lives in northwestern Mexico.
- Leopardus pardalis nelsoni lives in southern Mexico.
- Leopardus pardalis pardalis is distributed from Mexico to Honduras .
- Leopardus pardalis aequatorialis lives in southern Central America and northwestern South America .
- Leopardus pardalis pseudopardalis lives in northern South America ( Colombia , Venezuela ).
- Leopardus pardalis puseaus is native to Ecuador .
- Leopardus pardalis melanura lives in the Amazon basin .
- Leopardus pardalis mitis is distributed from central Brazil to northern Argentina .
- Leopardus pardalis steinbachi lives in a small area in Bolivia .
The IUCN Cat Specialist Group, however, only recognizes two subspecies in its 2017 revision of the cat system.
- Leopardus pardalis pardalis - Texas and Arizona to Costa Rica ; is smaller than L. p. mitis , the fur is slightly grayish.
- Leopardus pardalis mitis - South America; is larger than L. p. pardalis with a yellow fur.
Ocelot and human
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The name ocelot is derived from the Nahuatl word ocelotl , although this term probably originally meant the jaguar . The animal appears in the mythology of the Aztecs , the first mythical age of the Aztec eschatology is called nahui-ocelotl (four jaguars), there is also a day symbol called ocelotl in the Aztec calendar . The claws and the ocelot fur were used for ceremonial costume, depictions of the god Quetzalcoatl show him with earrings made from ocelot claws.
The cat species was known in Europe mainly because of the ocelot fur , which was used to a large extent in furring . Ocelots were among the cat species hardest hit by fur hunting, with up to 200,000 pelts being sold annually between the 1960s and the mid-1970s. Ocelot coats were priced up to $ 40,000 in the United States. Up until the 1980s, the Federal Republic was also an important customer. In 1986 the European Community implemented a ban on the import of ocelot skins. There has been an absolute trade ban since January 1990.
Another threat was hunting for pet use , which killed the mother and traded the young as a pet. Trade has declined to insignificant levels after the species was protected in most of the countries in its range and the ocelot was included in Appendix I of the International Convention on Species Conservation (CITES) in 1989 . However, according to the IUCN, there is still an illegal trade in fur and pets. The agreement prohibits all trade in products made from ocelot, including private purchases and sales of used items.
literature
- Julie L. Murray, Gregory L. Gardner: Leopardus pardalis. In: Mammalian Species . No. 548, pp. 1-10, Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's mammals of the world . 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 (English).
- Mel Sunquist and Fiona Sunquist: Wild Cats of the World . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2002, ISBN 0-226-77999-8
- DE Wilson, DM Reeder: Mammal Species of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
Web links
- Species profile ocelot; IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group in English
- Leopardus Pardalis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: A. Caso u. a., 2008. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
- Ocelot fur
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Sunquist, p. 125
- ↑ AC Kitchener, C. Breitenmoser-Würsten, E. Eizirik, A. Gentry, L. Werdelin, A. Wilting, N. Yamaguchi, AV Abramov, P. Christiansen, C. Driscoll, JW Duckworth, W. Johnson, S. -J. Luo, E. Meijaard, P. O'Donoghue, J. Sanderson, K. Seymour, M. Bruford, C. Groves, M. Hoffmann, K. Nowell, Z. Timmons, S. Tobe: A revised taxonomy of the Felidae . The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group. In: Cat News. Special Issue 11, 2017, pp. 47–48.
