Black cat
| Black cat | ||||||||||||
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A black cat |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Felis lybica lybica | ||||||||||||
| Forster , 1780 |
The black cat or African wildcat ( Felis lybica lybica , syn .: Felis silvestris lybica ) is a subspecies of the wildcat species Felis lybica and occurs in Africa north of the Congo Basin and Rovuma , in the Levant and on the Arabian Peninsula . The black cat is the wild trunk form ( wild form ) of the house cat ( Felis catus ).
features
The black cat is very similar in appearance and shape to the (short-haired) domestic cats. It is sand-colored (beige to gray or reddish) and slim. Specimens that live in arid regions are usually lighter and less clearly streaked or spotted than those in wetter regions. The coat is soft and the hair is often black tipped with a lighter area underneath. The ventral side is whitish or light orange, the chin is white. The backs of the ears are strikingly reddish brown. The tail is long and thin and shows two or three black rings in front of the black tip. The underside of the paws are black. The length from head to tail is 40 to 66.5 cm, the tail length 24 to 37 cm. She usually weighs 2.4 to 6.4 kg. The animals are longer-legged than domestic cats and when sitting, the body therefore takes an almost vertical position. It differs significantly from the European wildcat ( Felis silvestris silvestris ) in the morphometry of the skull.
However, due to the strong (re) intermingling with domestic cats for thousands of years, there are almost no more pure-blooded black cats, and in many places the animals can hardly be distinguished from feral domestic cats.
distribution and habitat
Wild cats are the border between about north in North, West and East Africa , Mozambique and Tanzania , with the exception of tropical rain forests and the very dry areas of the Sahara spreads , also you find them in the Levant , in some not too dry areas on the Arabian Peninsula , in southeast Iraq, as well as on the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia . They live in a wide variety of habitats , from semi-desert to savannah and from sea level to altitudes of 3000 meters. They do not occur in tropical rainforests and regions with less than 100 mm of rain per year. Black cats also live in agricultural areas and on the edges of villages and towns where they come into contact with domestic cats. They need cover for the hunt and to avoid larger predators. In the Ngorongoro crater, it was observed that they fled into the earthworks of other species in dangerous situations.
Several subspecies of the wildcat that correspond to the falcon type were originally described. Today most of them become the subspecies Felis I. lybica in short . Only in southern Africa does Felis l. cafra a subspecies that can be distinguished from the black cat.
Lifestyle and diet
Black cats are mostly seen individually and are considered to be territorial loners. Depending on local conditions, the territory can vary in size. For example, a male bald cat with a transmitter only moved in an area of 1.6 km² in Kenya, while a male and female falcon in the desert climate of the United Arab Emirates owned 29.7 to 52.7 km² territories. The female was recorded near 42 burrows in the ground , all of which had been created by red foxes . Black cats feed primarily on smaller rodents. In second place are birds such as pigeons, poultry, weaver birds or other small animals such as amphibians , lizards, small snakes as well as spiders, insects or even scorpions. Larger animals such as jumping hares , hares or rabbits and young antelopes are only captured in exceptional cases. In a dry region in Botswana, roller spiders (Solifugae) make up a considerable part of the diet of the black cats. In Namibia, the remains of small mammals were found in 90% and the remains of insects in 70% of the feces samples. Black cats can probably go without water for long periods of time. In the Sahara, animals were seen 15 km from the nearest water point. Black cats reproduce all year round, but most young are born in the rainy season when the female has enough to eat due to the seasonal frequency of rodents.
Cultural history
The house cat is descended from the falcon cat . There is evidence of domestication from 7500 BC. In Cyprus . However, it can be assumed that the cat has been with humans since the beginning of civilization, as they are easy to tame and the least aggressive of all types of cats.
The black cat is listed in Appendix B of the Washington Convention on Endangered Species , so trade with it is severely restricted. In the Red List of IUCN it is not performed separately. In contrast to other cat species, the greatest danger threatens the preservation of the black cat, neither through humans nor through the decline in habitat, but through frequent mixing with feral domestic cats.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Mel E. Sunquist, Fiona C. Sunquist: Family Felidae (Cats). In: Don E. Wilson , Russell A. Mittermeier : Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 1: Carnivores. Lynx Editions, Barcelona 2009, ISBN 978-84-96553-49-1 , pp. 165, 167.
- ↑ Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Carlos A. Driscoll, Andrew C. Kitchener, Jennifer M. Ward: Craniological differentiation between European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris), African wildcats (F. s. Lybica) and Asian wildcats (F. s. Ornata): Implications for their evolution and conservation. In: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. Volume 83, No. 1, 2004, pp. 47-63, doi: 10.1111 / j.1095-8312.2004.00372.x .
- ↑ AC Kitchener, Ch. 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. (= Cat News Special Issues. No. 11). 2017, ISSN 1027-2992 , pp. 17-20 ( PDF ).
- ↑ Cats and humans - dearly researcher: Already 9500 years ago In: Der Tagesspiegel from April 11, 2004.
