Little spotted cat
| Little spotted cat | ||||||||||||
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Little Spotted Cat at the Cincinnati Zoo |
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| Leopardus geoffroyi | ||||||||||||
| ( d'Orbigny & Gervais , 1844) |
The small spotted cat or salt cat , rarely also Geoffroy cat ( Leopardus geoffroyi or Oncifelis geoffroyi , named after the French zoologist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire ) is a South American species within the cat family (Felidae).
features
In terms of size, the small spotted cat corresponds to a large male house cat . The head body length is 60 cm, plus 30 cm tail. The basic color of the fur is gray or yellow-brown, with the gray animals in the south and the yellow in the north. The fur is marked with small, black spots. Melanism (black spots) often occurs .
habitat
The small spotted cat lives in the southern half of South America, from Bolivia and southern Brazil south to Patagonia . It occurs only east of the Andes . Forests are just as much their habitat as tree-lined grasslands.
Way of life
The prey includes hares and rodents. Since it also hunts for fish in the water, it is also known as the “fish cat” in South America (a term that is reserved for a completely different cat in German, see fish cat ). The little spotted cat is nocturnal and sleeps the day in the trees.
Threat and protection
The Geoffroy's cat fur has long been in the Skinning popular for the production of fur coats. The spotted cat is now acutely threatened with extinction and has therefore been listed in Appendix A of the Washington Convention on Endangered Species since 1992 . Any trade is therefore prohibited. This includes trade between private individuals and the trade in used products made from spotted cats. In 1991, the year before this protective provision came into force, 5500 animals (one tenth of the population known at the time) were brought into the animal trade.
Taxonomy
Regarding the scientific name, there is a discrepancy between Leopardus geoffroyi and Oncifelis geoffroyi . At first it was counted as Leopardus geoffroyi in the relationship of the ocelot , but afterwards it was grouped more in the genus Oncifelis , to which the Pampas cat and the Chilean forest cat were also counted. Wilson & Reeder (2005) finally merged the genera Leopardus and Oncifelis to form the genus leopard cats ( Leopardus ).
Crossbreed with domestic cats
Despite the different number of chromosomes, the small spotted cat can be crossed with the domestic cat . The resulting hybrids are called safari cats and are registered by TICA as an experimental breed.
swell
- ↑ Geoffroy's Cat. ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. At Feline Conservation Federation. Retrieved May 25, 2015.
- ↑ Philippe Rivalan, Virginie Delmas, Elena Angulo, Leigh S. Bull, Richard J. Hall, Franck Courchamp, Alison M. Rosser, Nigel Leader-Williams: Can bans stimulate wildlife trade? In: Nature . Volume 447, Issue 7144, May 31, 2007, pp. 529-530, doi : 10.1038 / 447529a .
literature
- Don E. Wilson , DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World. A taxonomic and geographic Reference. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
Web links
- Species profile small spotted cat; IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group in English
- Leopardus geoffroyi inthe IUCN 2012 Red List of Threatened Species . 2. Posted by: Lucherini, M., de Oliveira, T. & Acosta, G, 2008. Retrieved April 20, 2013.