Real cats

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Real cats
European wild cat

European wild cat

Systematics
Superordinate : Laurasiatheria
Order : Predators (Carnivora)
Subordination : Feline (Feliformia)
Family : Cats (Felidae)
Subfamily : Small cats (Felinae)
Genre : Real cats
Scientific name
Felis
Linnaeus , 1758

The Real cats or Old World wild cats ( Felis ) are a to the small cats belonging to the genus of cats . They are distributed with six species in Africa , Europe and Asia and inhabit almost all habitats in their range. A distinction is made between the black-footed cat , the pipe cat , the sand cat , Felis lybica and the European wild cat . The real cats also include the house cat , which is widespread around the world and which the other representatives look very similar to.

The real cats are small to medium-sized cats with a short snout, pointed ears and a long tail. Their fur is usually yellow-brown to gray and usually has rows of spots or stripes running across them and a striped tail. The mainly solitary carnivores feed on small mammals, birds, lizards and insects. Named after the Latin name for the cat, the genus Felis was described by Carl von Linné in 1758 .

anatomy

general characteristics

All species of real cats are similar to the house cat . This occurs worldwide today.
The body shape of the pipe cat corresponds - like that of the other real cats - the classic body shape of cats.
Real cats like the black-footed cat usually have rows of spots or stripes running across their bodies .

All species of the real cat are more or less similar to the domestic cat and can be confused with it. They are small to medium-sized cats with a head-to-trunk length of 36 to 112 centimeters and a body weight of one to 13 kilograms. They include some of the smallest species of cats, but otherwise have their classic body shape. Your body is strongly built and elongated, and the shoulders are lower than the lumbar region . At 38 to 60 percent of the head-trunk length, the well-developed tail is usually more than half as long as the rest of the body, but sometimes a little shorter.

The head of the real cats is round and the snout is comparatively short. The auricles taper towards the tip. Under strong light, the pupil of the eyes contracts into a vertical slit. The legs are short to medium in length and their paws are small, narrow, and rounded. There are usually five toes on the front paws and four on the back feet. All toes have retractable claws , but the claw sheaths are comparatively poorly developed.

Fur and color

The fur of the Real cats is relatively short and tight. Some woolly hair is always present, even in tropical forms or in summer. The auricles are sometimes covered with a short tuft of hair and sometimes a back crest is formed. However, the hair on the body, tail and legs is otherwise quite uniform and there are no fringes on the cheeks. The hair on the back of the neck falls off.

Depending on the environment, the basic shade of the coat color is very variable and ranges from yellow-brown to gray. The upper part of the guard hairs has this shade, but their tip is darker to varying degrees. The fur is plain to heavily patterned. The pattern on the body usually consists of transverse rows of spots. These are full spots, not rosettes. The spots on the flanks can be fused into horizontal stripes, but never into longitudinal stripes. The tendency to horizontal stripes is particularly pronounced behind the shoulders. This pattern, which is characteristic of real cats, can, however, be weak or completely absent in adult animals. Melanism is rare in nature, but has been reported from the cane cat in Pakistan.

The crown and neck of the real cats usually have four to five longitudinal stripes, which sometimes reach to the shoulders. However, these can also be dissolved in spots on the head and sometimes be absent. There is a strip on the side of the head from the corner of the eye to the back, and on the cheek there are usually two more strips. The back of the auricles is yellow-reddish in color, sometimes with a black border. The noticeable white spot found in many other small cats, however, is never present. The underside of the body is spotted at least in the middle. The throat can have three transverse ligaments, the rearmost of which is always preserved, although sometimes only weakly. There is at least one strip on the front legs that is on the inside below the elbow. The rear legs are striped on the outside at least above the ankle joint. The soles of the feet are black and on the hind feet this color often extends up to the ankle. The upper side of the tail can be banded throughout, in the rear half it is always strongly striped and it can have a black tip. The pattern of the legs, the tail and usually also the underside of the body is present even if the other body pattern is missing.

Skull and teeth

Black cat skull

The rounded skull of real cats is relatively wide and high, except for the pipe cat. Compared to other cats, it is lightly built with slender zygomatic arches , large eye sockets and a large, bloated brain capsule . In side view, the upper profile of the skull is convex.

The muzzle is short and is usually steeper than most other cats, so that the nostrils are lower in relation to the top of the head. The distance from the snout to the usually noticeably protruding front edge of the eye sockets is smaller than their largest diameter. The posterior limitation of the eye socket is at most a little in front of the center of the skull. It is formed by processes of the frontal bone and the zygomatic bone , which sometimes touch. The broad, blunt and ligament-like frontal bones are a particularly characteristic feature of real cats. The bony ridges of the brain skull are comparatively weak. The temporal ridges meet at most on the vertex. If there is a crest , it is poorly developed, short and limited to the back of the crown. The bony palate is as wide as it is long or wider. The mesopterygoid fossa of the sphenoid bone is wide, its sides are parallel to one another or apart in front, and its front edge is slightly biconcave. The tympanic bladders are greatly inflated, especially in the sand cat and the black-footed cat. The ectotympanicum is greatly enlarged and sometimes as extensive as the entotympanicum, but it is usually considerably smaller.

3 · 1 · 3 · 1  =  30
3 · 1 · 2 · 1
Real Cats Tooth Formula

The teeth of the real cats indicate the meat food and have a total of 30 teeth. In each upper half of the jaw there are three incisors , one canine , three premolar teeth and one real molar . The lower jaw halves have two instead of three premolar teeth.

Habitat, way of life and behavior

Real cats like the sand cat inhabit almost all habitats in their area of ​​distribution.

Real cats inhabit all habitats of their range except the closed tropical forests of Africa. The exclusive carnivores usually prey on mammals and birds smaller than themselves, as well as lizards and insects . Although they were scientifically described relatively early, little is known about the other way of life and the social structure of some forms. Real cats are mainly solitary and their social order is essentially that of cats. There is only a slight overlap between the territories of same-sex animals. The territory of a male, however, usually overlaps with the smaller territories of one or two females. The purring of young animals and their mother is well known.

Distribution and Tribal History

distribution

The natural range of the real cats (blue) is in Africa, Europe and Asia.

The natural range of the real cats is in the old world . All species occur in Africa , the black-footed cat only there. The other species are partly distributed far into Europe and Asia . To the north they occur up to about 60 degrees latitude and to the east to Southeast Asia . They are absent on the Malay Peninsula and the Sunda Islands .

Tribal history

Fossil finds of today's representatives of the real cats come from the Upper Pliocene to the Old Pleistocene and the Holocene of Asia, from the ending Old Pleistocene to the Holocene of Europe and from the Pliocene to the Holocene of Africa. Compared to the real big cats , however, there are few finds. Felis attica , the most likely fossil ancestor, was found throughout the Upper Miocene of Eurasia. Another possible ancestor is Felis lunensis from the Upper Pliocene and the European Old Pleistocene. According to more recent studies from 2006, however, the real cats split off from the old cats about 6.2 million years ago . They originated in Asia and probably immigrated to Africa as early as the Upper Miocene. There, the oldest real cat fossils come from Toros-Menalla in Chad, and finds from Kanapoi in Kenya, which date back to around 4.1 million years, belong to the Pliocene . From the time thereafter there are only sporadic finds in Africa, the earliest evidence of a present-day representative ( Felis silvestris ) belongs to the end of the Pliocene and comes from Ahl al Oughlam in Morocco. Due to climatic and geographic isolation events , the populations were separated from each other by bodies of water, deserts and mountains. As an adaptation to arid and mesian environmental conditions, they eventually evolved into today's species.

Systematics and nomenclature

Systematics

 Real cats 

Black-footed cat


   

Pipe cat


   

Sand cat


   

Gray cat


   

Wild cat






Template: Klade / Maintenance / Style

Real cats cladogram according to Nyakatura and Bininda-Emonds (2012)

The real cats are assigned to the small cats as the genus Felis . Your closest relatives are the old cats and the manul . In the past, the manul or the caracal were also assigned to the genus Felis . Or the real cats were listed as the nominotypical sub-genus Felis and the genus also contained the manul, the lynx or almost all small cats. However, such an arrangement is not well founded by systematic studies. The IUCN Cat Specialist Group counts the following genera and species among the real cats:

  • Gray cat , Felishabeni Milne Edwards , in 1892 was considered a subspecies of the wildcat for a time, but is now again regarded as an independent species.
  • Reed cat , Felis chaus Schreber, 1777 from Egypt via West and South Asia to Southeast Asia
  • Felis lybica Forster, 1780 in Africa and Asia
  • Sand cat , Felis margarita Loche , 1858 in North Africa and West Asia
  • Black-footed Cat , Felis nigripes Burchell , 1824 in Southern Africa
  • European wildcat , Felis silvestris Schreber , 1777 in Europe and the Caucasus

The exact relationship between the domestic cat and the wild cat has also been the subject of controversy. Some authors therefore regard the domestic cat as an independent species and others as a subspecies of the wild cat. Revisions of the genus Felis are available from Schwangart (1943), Pocock (1951), Haltorth (1953) and Kitchener and colleagues (2017).

nomenclature

The genus Felis was described in 1758 by Carl von Linné in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae . The name is derived from the Latin felis (also feles, faeles, faelis ) "cat, marten". The type species is due to the Linnaeus tautonymy Felis catus Linnaeus , 1758 (= house cat). This was also determined by Opinion 91 (1926) and Declaration 24 (1955) of the ICZN . Synonyms of the genus are Catus Frisch , 1775 (type Felis catus = domestic cat), Chaus Gray , 1843 (type Felis chaus = cane cat), Catolynx Severtzov , 1858 (type Felis chaus = cane cat), Otailurus Severtzov , 1858 (type Felis megalotis = house cat ) Mamfelisus Herrera 1899 (invalid modification of Felis ), Poliailurus Lönnberg 1925 (type species Felis pallida = gray cat), Microfelis Roberts 1926 (type species Felis nigripes = black-footed), Eremaelurus Ognev 1927 (type species Eremaelurus thinobius = sand cat) and Avitofelis Kretzoi , 1930 (type Avitofelis zitteli ).

Real cats and humans

Real cats are particularly familiar to humans due to the affiliation of the domesticated house cat . This occurs worldwide today.

Web links

Commons : Felis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Stéphane Aulagnier, Patrick Haffner, Anthony J. Mitchell-Jones, François Moutou, Jan Zima: The mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East . Haupt, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-258-07506-8 (translation).
  • Gordon Barclay Corbet, John Edwards Hill: The Mammals of the Indomalayan Region: A Systematic Review . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1992, ISBN 0-19-854693-9 .
  • Eckhard Grimmberger, Klaus Rudloff, Christian Kern: Atlas of the mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East . Nature and Animals, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-86659-090-8 .
  • International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature: Direction 114: Herrera, 1899, 'Sinonimia vulgar y cientifica de los principales vertebrados Mexicanos' placed on the official index of rejected and invalid works in zoology (direction supplementary to Direction 32) . In: The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature . tape 41 , 1984.
  • Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, Nuria García, Dimitris S. Kostopoulos, Frédéric Lacombat, Adrian M. Lister, Paul PA Mazza, Nikolai Spassov and Vadim V. Titov: Western Palaearctic palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Early and early Middle Pleistocene inferred from large mammal communities, and implications for hominin dispersal in Europe. Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (11-12), 2011, pp. 1368-1395
  • Andrew Kitchener: The Natural History of the Wild Cats . Christopher Helm (A & C Black), London 1991, ISBN 0-7136-8042-3 .
  • Paul Leyhausen: Cats . In: Bernhard Grzimek (Ed.): Grzimek's Enzyklopädie Säugetiere. Volume 6 . S. 256-312 (eleven volume licensed edition, [1988]).
  • Malcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level . Columbia University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-231-11012-X .
  • Katrin Nyakatura, Olaf RP Bininda-Emonds: Updating the evolutionary history of Carnivora (Mammalia): a new species-level supertree complete with divergence time estimates . In: BMC Biology . tape 10 , no. 12 , 2012, p. 1-31 .
  • Theodore Sherman Palmer: Index generum mammalium: A list of the genera and families of mammals . In: North American Fauna . No. 23 , 1904 (English, biodiversitylibrary.org ).
  • Stéphane Peigné, Louis de Bonis, Hassane Taisso Mackaye, Andossa Likius, Patrick Vignaud and Michel Brunet: Late Miocene Carnivora from Chad: Herpestidae, Viverridae and small-sized Felidae. Comptes Rendus Palevol 7, 2008, pp. 499-527
  • Reginald Innes Pocock: Catalog of the Genus Felis . British Museum (Natural History), London 1951.
  • Alexander Sliwa: Genus Felis . In: Jonathan Kingdon, Michael Hoffmann (Eds.): Mammals of Africa. Volume V: Carnivores, Pangolins, Equids and Rhinoceroses . Bloomsbury Publishing, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-4081-2255-6 , pp. 196-197 .
  • Melvin E. Sunquist, Fiona C. Sunquist: Family Felidae (Cats) . In: Don E. Wilson, Russell A. Mittermeier (eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Vol. 1: Carnivores . Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2009, ISBN 978-84-96553-49-1 , pp. 54-168 .
  • Lars Werdelin and Stéphane Peigné: Carnivora. In: Lars Werdelin and William Joseph Sanders (eds.): Cenozoic Mammals of Africa. University of California Press, 2010, pp. 603-657 (pp. 644-645)
  • W. Christopher Wozencraft: Order Carnivora . In: Don E. Wilson, DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World : A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference . 3. Edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 , pp. 532-628 .
  • W. Christopher Wozencraft: Order Carnivora . In: Andrew T. Smith, Xie Yan (Eds.): A Guide to the Mammals of China . Princeton University Press, Princeton / Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-09984-2 , pp. 388-449 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Grimmberger and colleagues, 2009 (p. 334)
  2. ↑ Leyhausen, 1988 (p. 292)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Wozencraft, 2008 (p. 392)
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Pocock, 1951 ( p. 5 )
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Sliwa, 2013 (p. 197)
  6. ↑ Sliwa, 2013 (p. 196)
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Aulagnier and co-workers, 2009 (p. 128)
  8. ↑ a b c Pocock, 1951 ( p. 6 )
  9. ↑ Kahlke et al., 2011 (p. 1380)
  10. ↑ a b McKenna and Bell, 1997 (p. 231)
  11. ↑ a b Werdelin et al., 2008 (pp. 644–645)
  12. ↑ Peigné et al., 2008 (pp. 519–524)
  13. ↑ Nyakatura and Bininda-Emonds, 2012 (Fig. 10, p. 18 )
  14. ↑ Nyakatura and Bininda-Emonds, 2012 ( p. 17 )
  15. ↑ Wozencraft, 2008 (p. 395)
  16. ^ Corbet and Hill, 1992 (p. 222)
  17. ↑ Kitchener, 1991 (Tab. 2.1, pp. 39-40)
  18. ↑ a b c d e Kitchener AC, Breitenmoser-Würsten Ch., Eizirik E., Gentry A., Werdelin L., Wilting A., Yamaguchi N., Abramov AV, Christiansen P., Driscoll C., Duckworth JW, Johnson W., Luo S.-J., Meijaard E., O'Donoghue P., Sanderson J., Seymour K., Bruford M., Groves C., Hoffmann M., Nowell K., Timmons Z. & Tobe S. 2017. 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 Issue 11, 80 pp. Pages 26–28.
  19. ^ Mel E. Sunquist & Fiona C. Sunquist: Family Felidae (Cats). P. 166 in Don E. Wilson , Russell A. Mittermeier : Handbook of the Mammals of the World - Volume 1 Carnivores. Lynx Editions, 2009, ISBN 978-84-96553-49-1
  20. ↑ a b c Sunquist and Sunquist, 2009 (pp. 165–167)
  21. ↑ Friedrich Schwangart: The sole drawing of Felis and related things : To the systematics and ecology of genus . In: Treatises of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Mathematical and Natural Science Department, New Series . tape 52 , 1943, p. 1-35 .
  22. ^ Reginald Innes Pocock: Catalog of the Genus Felis . British Museum (Natural History), London 1951.
  23. ^ Theodor Haltorth: The wild cats of the old world: An overview of the subgenus Felis . Academic publishing company Geest & Portig, Leipzig 1953.
  24. ↑ a b c Wozencraft, 2005 (p. 534)
  25. ↑ ICZN, 1984 ( pp. 39-40 )
  26. ↑ Palmer, 1904 ( p. 828 )
  27. ↑ Paläontologisches Zentralblatt . tape 1-2 , 1932, pp. 478 .
  28. ↑ Pocock, 1951 ( p. 4 )