This blog is written and maintained by Miss Cuddlywumps, a fluffy-tailed calico cat who is both classically educated and familiar with mysteries. She receives creative input from the Real Cats and clerical assistance from She of Little Talent (old SoLT, a.k.a. Roby Sweet). Comments or complaints should be addressed to Miss C rather than to old SoLt (Ms. Sweet). Ms. Sweet accepts no responsibility for Miss C's opinions.
Our subject today is the mythical North American feline known
as the ball-tailed cat(Felis caudaglobosa—and no, we’re not
entirely sure why a fictional creature has a scientific name or who so named
it). The ball-tailed cat was a sort of wildcat similar to a mountain lion, only
with a “hardy heavy, bony ball on the end of its tail” (Tryon, p. 7). We haven’t
been able to find out the original range of this feline, but woodsmen around
the turn of the 20th century traded tales of the creature, so we deduce
that it lived primarily in wooded areas. Henry Harrington Tryon wrote in the
1930s that
recent surveys indicate that it is now pretty well confined
to Harney County, Oregon, and Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. (p. 7)
The cat had a unique hunting method, lying in wait on a tree
limb, only to drop down onto someone passing by (usually a lumberjack) and
pound the victim to death with its ball. For a male cat, the ball was
multipurpose: the cat could drum it against a hollow log to try to attract females.
Where did stories of such a creature originate? This is
another thing we don’t know (add it to the list!). We speculate that perhaps a
woodsman encountered a mountain lion with an abscess or tumor on its
tail, and one thing led to another—but we doubt such a cat tried to beat the
man to death with its tail. And yes, we made up everything in that last
sentence, so don’t go quoting it as fact. Could be lumberjacks are just really good at making stuff up.
A dimaul, dingmaul, or digmaul.
The Monster Blog of Monsters reports that “magizoologists” have noted the similarity
between the ball-tailed cat’s tail and that of the dinosaur Ankylosaurus, which
is thought to have used the mass on its tail “in defence and threat displays.” Some
of these magizoologists even think that the ball-tailed cat could be related to
Ankylosaurus, “but they are generally regarded as being quite, quite bonkers.”
We would have to agree.
A silver cat. Apparently they liked to hang upside down from branches.
Similar mythical felines include the digmaul (which we have
also found spelled “dingmaul” or “dimaul”) and the silver cat. The silver cat
sounds particularly fearsome, as the ball in its tail featured a smooth side
for beating things and a spiked side for hanging on to them. You wouldn’t want
to run into one of those in the woods, now would you?
Picture credit: All
images are from Tryon’s book Fearsome
Critters, illustrated by Margaret R. Tryon. [CC0], via
Wikimedia Commons.
The Maine coon is the state cat of--you guessed it!--Maine. Photo via Adobe Stock.
Our topic today is official cats, and specifically, cats
that have been named as official symbols of states in the US. Only three states
have named a certain type of domestic cat as their “state cat,” and only one of
those is an actual breed of cat; the other two are cats with certain coat
patterns. We don’t know why more states don’t have official cats, because a
great cat is certainly something to be proud of. Interestingly, initiatives to
name a state cat have often begun with schoolchildren (which just goes to show
you who has their priorities in order).
Official state cats
The three states with official cats are Maine, Massachusetts,
and Maryland. We guess it is a total coincidence that these states all begin
with the letter M. (Or is it? Are you
familiar with the M pattern that
famously adorns the foreheads of tabby cats?)
Maine was the
first state to name an official cat, back in 1985. It makes perfect sense that
this state’s cat is the Maine coon, since this large breed “is regarded as a
native of the state of Maine,” according to the kids’ section of the maine.gov website.
The Cat Fanciers Association says that Maine was the first state to recognize
these cats as a unique breed. Generally, Maine coons are known as sturdy,
intelligent cats with a shaggy coat and tail, tufted paws, and large, tufted ears. They appeared in cat shows as early as
the 1860s, when Maine farmers organized a show at the Skowhegan Fair, which
resulted in the winning cat being named “Maine State Champion Coon Cat.” In
1895, a Maine coon named Cosey won a cat show held at Madison Square Garden.
You can see a picture of the silver collar she won in the CFA article “America’s First Show Cat—the Maine Coon Cat.”
Cats with a tabby coat pattern are the cat of the
commonwealth in Massachusetts. Photo via Adobe Stock.
Massachusetts
named the tabby the “official cat of the commonwealth” in 1988. “Tabby” is not
a breed of cat; instead, the term describes a striped coat pattern that many
cats have. Schoolchildren in the state pushed for the tabby to receive the honor
of being the cat of the commonwealth. Why tabbies? We have so far not been able
to find the answer to that question, so if you know, please tell us!
In our home state of Maryland,
the calico was named state cat in 2001. Again, “calico” is not a breed, it’s a coat
pattern in which a cat has patches of black, orange, and white fur. The calico
was chosen as state cat of Maryland because this coloring resembles the colors of
other state symbols: the state flag, bird (Baltimore oriole), and insect
(Baltimore checkerspot butterfly).
We are partial to the calico, which is our state cat
in Maryland. Photo via Adobe Stock.
Official state pets
Several other states do not have a specific state cat, but
they have named dogs and cats either in shelters or adopted from shelters in
their states as the “official state pets.”
In Colorado, the effort
to declare as state pet those dogs and cats who are shelter alumni started in
2013 with some middle schoolers from Peakview School in Walsenburg. The goal was
to bring attention to shelter pets (and to see the state’s legislative
process up close). Despite objections from those representing the interests of
breeders and dog-show organizers, as well as those who thought the bill
discriminated against other kinds of pets, such as reptiles and birds, the
measure passed both the House and Senate and was signed by Governor John
Hickenlooper on May 13, 2013.
Tennessee
declared dogs and cats adopted from the state’s shelters and rescues as the
official state pet in 2014.
California named
“a shelter pet” as its official state pet in 2015. In making this declaration,
the state’s legislature wrote that the aim of the measure was “to raise public
awareness of shelter animals.”
Illinois declared
shelter dogs and cats (whether adopted from or currently in shelters) as the
official state pet in August 2017.
In New Hampshire, the bobcat is the state wildcat. Photo via Adobe Stock.
Honorable mentions: Wildcats and extinct cats
So far, we’ve dealt strictly with domestic cats, but some states have gone to the wild side when choosing cats as symbols.
In Florida, the endangered
Florida panther was named the official state animal in 1982.
New Hampshire named
the bobcat as its official state wildcat in 2015, with prompting from fourth-
and fifth-graders at the Well School in Peterborough. (North Carolina also
tried to make the bobcat the official state wildcat in 2015, but the attempt
failed in the state’s senate.)
Finally, one state, California,
has designated the extinct the saber-toothed cat as the state fossil.
Did we miss any official cats of the US? Let us know in the comments!
When She of Little Talent was a little girl (many, many
years ago), she dreamed of being some sort of field biologist who lived in a
tent surrounded by lions or polar bears or something. She wanted to be the
person who snowshoed into a remote place to crawl into a hibernating bear’s den
and take a blood sample. She would have loved Moto and Me, by Suzi Eszterhas.
Eszterhas went to Kenya to photograph animals and ended up
caring for a baby serval who was picked up by a group of tourists who assumed
he was an orphan (although, the author writes, the baby’s mother was probably
hiding nearby, just waiting for the humans to leave so she could retrieve him).
She named the little wildcat Moto, meaning “fire” in Swahili, and she became totally devoted to his care, feeding him, bathing him, and helping him learn
how to be a serval. She did this so that he could be a wild serval like he was
born to be.
Alongside the story of raising Moto, Eszterhas tells us a
lot about servals, which we found really interesting. She also writes of other
encounters with wildlife, like seeing a leopard slink past her tent one night
and of having a spitting cobra on her desk (that
must have been fun). And then there are the photographs, which show Moto
growing up. Let’s just say baby servals are adorable!
Moto and Me is recommended for ages 7–10. We found it be an
enjoyable, informative read, with eye-catching photos. This is just the kind of
book that can inspire or further a love of wildlife in some little girl or boy.
Recommended!
A
note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up.
One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three
or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss Cdoes notdo that!
We
received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. We
wouldn’t tell you it was good unless we really liked it!
The
link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this
link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!
We’ve recently received several news releases concerning our
big-cat cousins. Each one could be its own post, but we thought we’d condense
them all into one news roundup.
Sunda clouded leopard. Photo by Spencer Wright, North Walsham, England [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Common
African lions, clouded leopards, and declining prey populations
First, we learned that African lions and Sunda clouded leopards face the same threats that saber-toothed tigers faced. Researchers from several institutions looked into what caused
the extinction of seven big cat species from the Ice Age and concluded that
loss of prey was a major factor. They then looked at the prey species of modern
big cats and discovered that the African lion and Sunda clouded leopard (found
in Borneo and Sumatra) could be at risk. The researchers say that if prey
species for these cats continue to decline, the cats could have “a high risk of
extinction.”
A snow leopard in India's Hemis National Park. Photo by Snow Leopard Conservancy/Jammu & Kashmir Wildlife Protection Department [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Three subspecies of snow leopard identified
Next, we learned that 3 new subspecies of snow leopard have been identified. In the first-ever genetic analysis
across the snow leopard’s range, researchers used the cats’ scat (i.e., poop)
and identified three “genetic clusters.” They recognize these clusters as
subspecies, each inhabiting its own geographic region. Understanding the
subspecies populations can both help scientists understand the snow leopard’s
evolution and ecology and provide information that can be used to improve the cats’
conservation.
Tree-climbing lions now have smaller prides, larger ranges
Finally, we learned that Uganda’s tree-climbing lions are roaming farther as their prey animals decrease.
Scientists compared the home ranges of lion prides in Uganda’s Ishasha district
from the 1970s and today. They discovered that the tree-climbing lions of today
live in smaller prides with larger home ranges. This change has happened at the
same time that the lions’ main prey species, the Ugandan kob, has declined. (We're sure you don't need us to point out how this bit of news relates to the first story we shared.)
Tree-climbing lions in Uganda's Ishasha district. Photo by By Charlesjsharp, Sharp Photography [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Warning: Today’s
post has some rather gruesome parts to it, as we bring you the story of two of
our wild cousins who were famous for all the wrong reasons. You’ve been warned.
The Tsavo man-eaters
Every once in while, you hear of a “man-eating” lion, but
why do some lions choose to hunt humans instead of the four-legged hoofed
animals that are their usual prey? A new study recently published in Scientific Reports looked at “dental microwear” to see what they could learn about lions' eating behaviors
from evidence left behind on their teeth. The work suggests that at least in some cases,
the answer to "Why?" could be dental injury and disease.
The "Tsavo man-eaters" today, in a diorama at the Field Museum
in Chicago. The skins were sold to the museum for $5,000 some 25 years
after the lions' death.
By Superx308 Jeffrey Jung, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Two of the lions whose teeth were examined were the famous
Tsavo man-eaters of 1898. These were maneless male lions that, according to the
most spectacular estimate, killed up to 135 people. The actual number has been
shown to be much lower, about 35 people, but that is still a lot. The victims
were Indian members of a construction crew building a railroad bridge over the
Tsavo River in Kenya. The terror at the railroad workers’ camp began in March
1898 when, shortly after their arrival, men started to go missing. Searches
turned up mutilated bodies. Efforts to protect the camp with thorny barricades
failed, as the lions found a way through the barriers. One worker wrote that
the lions’
“very jaws were steeped in blood. Bones, flesh, skin and
blood, they devoured all, and left not a trace behind them.”
Lieutenant Colonel J. H. Patterson, an engineer and leader
of the expedition, wrote of hearing the cats crunching the bones of one of their victims,
purring as they did so.
The first of the two Tsavo man-eating lions (FMNH 23970)
shot by Lieutenant Colonel Patterson, 1898.
By Field Museum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Patterson would eventually kill both of the lions, the first
on December 9, 1898. That lion was over nine feet long from his nose to the tip
of his tail, and it took eight men to carry him to the camp. The second lion,
killed three weeks later, was of similar size. Both lions had injuries to their
skin from the thorns that were used to try to protect the workers’ camp. Patterson
kept the skins as trophy rugs for some 25 years, before selling them to the
Field Museum in Chicago for $5,000. They were stuffed and placed on display,
and they can still be seen there.
(The 1996 movie The Ghost
and the Darkness, starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer, dramatized the events
in the construction camp.)
What the teeth say
Although Patterson wrote of hearing the lions crunching
their victims’ bones, the evidence left behind on the cats’ teeth tells a
different story. The authors of the paper in Scientific Reports used something called dental microwear texture
analysis to determine what the lions were eating. The results suggest that, in
the period just before their death, the Tsavo man-eaters were not consuming the
bones of their prey and were instead consuming only the softer tissues.
The second Tsavo lion shot by Lieutenant Colonel Patterson.
This lion is now known as FMNH 23969.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The teeth also showed a possible reason the lions became
man-eaters. One of the cats had a serious dental injury, a broken lower tooth, and
the pain from that may have made it impossible for him to kill normal prey in
the usual lion way, through suffocation. That could have prompted him to pass
up his usual prey in favor of something softer, slower, and easier to catch, like people. The other
lion also had dental injuries, but his were less severe. Interestingly, for the
second lion, humans made up a smaller part of his diet than for the first lion—13%
versus 30%. And those numbers, by the way, also show that humans still made up
a relatively small part of both lions’ diets.
We think it’s worth noting that it seems that, even for the “man-eaters,”
humans were not at the top of the menu. The lion with the severely injured
tooth may have turned to the workers’ camp for prey because he was in too much
pain to routinely catch and kill other prey. The second lion may have been a true
copycat, learning from his companion how to take easy prey from the camp.
If you have about nine minutes, this video is well worth a look. It's from before the most recent paper was published, but you can see researcher Larisa DeSantis
demonstrating how molds of the lions’ teeth were made. Interesting!
Sources
Larisa R. G. DeSantis and Bruce D. Patterson, “Dietary
Behaviour of Man-Eating Lions as Revealed by Dental Microwear Textures,” Scientific Reports 7, April 19, 2017, doi:10.1038/s41598-017-00948-5,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00948-5
J.H. Patterson, The
Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo and Other East Africa Adventures, 1907.
Emperor Akbar hunting with cheetahs.
By Painter at the Court of Akbar c. 1602. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It is hard to believe now, but beginning at least a few thousand
years ago, humans trained cheetahs as to hunt with them. When we first heard of
this, the little bit of information we had raised several questions: When,
where, why, how? And of course, What?
To understand hunting with cheetahs, let’s start with the cheetahs themselves.
A few cheetah facts
The cheetah, Acinonyx
jubatus, is the world’s fastest land animal. The common name “cheetah”
actually describes the cat’s spotted coat. It comes from a Hindi word (chita) meaning “spotted” or “sprinkled.”
When you picture a cheetah, you probably see a cat with a compact head with
black “tear lines” on the face, a small waist, long legs, and a superflexible
spine—adaptations that help them run at up to 54 miles per hour for short
distances. This remarkable speed is what allows them to catch their prey.
Prince Hunting with Cheetah.
India, West Bengal, 1764 or earlier.
Opaque watercolor on gold paper. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
These cats are found in much of sub-Saharan Africa, where
they hunt on grassy plains and open forests. The Asiatic cheetah (A. jubatus venaticus) is now critically
endangered, but it was once found in India and southwestern Asia. There
may be only 60 Asiatic cheetahs alive today, all in Iran. The Asiatic
subspecies will be the focus of much of this post.
It all starts in Egypt
Mongol hunter and cheetah in
Tsonjin Boldog, Tuv aimag, Mongolia. Enerelt at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0].
The Egyptians did not only domesticate the felines that
would become house cats, they also tamed cheetahs, starting in 1550 BC or
earlier. They taught cheetahs to hunt with humans, but they didn’t do it the
way you might expect, by catching cubs and raising them among humans. No, they
needed cats that already knew how to hunt, and that meant capturing adults to
be tamed and trained. During the hunt, the trained cheetahs were kept
blindfolded until the right moment. After prey had been flushed out, the cats
were let go to run it down.
From Egypt, this hunting method spread to Persia and India,
where the practice continued at least into the 20th century (and where the
cheetahs were often called “hunting leopards”). Taking adults from the wild
likely played a role in the Asiatic cheetah’s quick decline, and as local
cheetahs became rare in India, the wealthy imported African cheetahs for use in
hunting.
How cheetahs were caught and tamed
An account quoted in the book Wild Cats of the World reveals how adult cheetahs were caught and
tamed. It started with staking out a tree that the cats liked to scratch.
Nooses were set around the tree to snare the cheetah who came to sharpen his
claws. Once the animal was captured, “Women and children [were] told to sit all
day long close to the animals, and keep up a conversation so that they should
get accustomed to the human voice.” It would take months to train cheetahs for
hunting.
Hunting with cheetahs in India, c. 1860. From the Illustrated History of the British Empire in India and the East. Vol. 1. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
A sport for the wealthy
When we’re talking about hunting with cheetahs, we’re not
talking about subsistence hunting. We’re talking about a sport practiced by the
wealthy, and often by royalty. Akbar the Great (1542–1605), a Mughal emperor, was the first to keep hunting cheetahs in India. He was presented with his
first cheetah, a cat named Fatehbaz, in 1555. He supposedly had 1,000 cheetahs
at one time and 9,000 over the course of his reign, but these numbers may be
inflated. He used the cheetahs to hunt blackbucks, chinkaras, and antelopes. By
the way, he captured adult cheetahs not with nooses as described above but with
trapdoors that dropped the cats into pits.
Cheetahs with handlers at Baroda, Gujarat, 1890s.
The cheetahs belonged to Gaekwar Sayaki Rao III
(ruled 1875-1939), 12th Maharaja of Baroda. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The practice of hunting with cheetahs spread into Russia and
Mongolia, as well as Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. There are reports of an
Armenian ruler who had 100 cheetahs in 1474.
Hunting technique, as seen in the 1939 video below, involved
wheeling blindfolded cheetahs in on carts. In some works of art, cheetahs are
depicted riding on horseback behind their handlers. The cheetahs would be
gotten close to the prey and then released for the chase.
And today...
While hunting with cheetahs largely ended in the 20th century, it still goes on in some places, among those humans who have the time and resources to do it. Notably, a YouTube video shows a Saudi man hunting deer with a cheetah. We think that, given the cheetah's vulnerable conservation status (as listed by the IUCN), taking them from the wild for use as human entertainment is not okay. Such magnificent felines deserve better.
The iconic and majestic cheetah. Now that is a cat. But cheetahs could disappear
forever unless humans act to protect them. Photo credit: Zoological Society of London.
Hello, all. Webster here, coming to you from near the
Christmas tree.
The cat world got some shocking and upsetting news this week
when Panthera revealed a study showing that just 7,100 cheetahs remain in the
wild. The study’s authors want the cheetah’s status to be changed from “Vulnerable”
to “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The cheetah has
been driven out of 91% of its historic range, the study says. This is a big
problem because cheetahs do not stay in one little place; they get around, and
so they are often not in protected areas. In Zimbabwe, the cheetah population
has plunged from 1,200 to no more than 170 in just 16 years. That means 85% of
Zimbabwe’s cheetahs have been lost in that time.
This is a population headed in the wrong direction.
No more cheetahs means no more cheetah cubs. Photo credit: Zoological Society of London.
And so, I choose “extinction” as our word for this week. It
means
the act of making extinct or causing to be extinguished
: Quenching,
Suppression, Extermination, Destruction, Annihilation.
Once a species is extinct, it is gone … forever. The thought
of seeing this happen to a species as iconic as the cheetah is distressing. I
hope the humans out there will work together to find a way to make sure this
does not happen.
Read more about the study here,
and check out this infographicfrom Panthera.
Friendly Fill-Ins
And now, on a lighter note, it's time for Friendly Fill-Ins. from 15andmeowing and McGuffy’s Reader. They are a fun way to learn a little bit about the authors of
the blogs you read. The first two questions, answered by old SoLT, are from
Ellen of 15andmeowing, and the next two, answered this week by Real Cat
Paisley, are from Annie of McGuffy’s Reader.
Old SoLT’s answers
1.
The highlight of my Christmas was spending time with my family.
2.
My New Year's resolution is … well, I don’t really do resolutions, but I am in
the process of getting my office more organized and hope to keep it that way
(stop laughing!). I also got myself a new guitar for Christmas and plan to learn
to strum a few songs (again, stop laughing!).
Real Cat Paisley’s answers
3. This year, 2016, was a nice year, except there was too much
politics among the humans. Cats don’t have politics, which is one reason we are
superior. Also, somewhat unfortunately, our family got a new dog.
4. Next year, 2017, I promise to try to get along better with
the dog (and if you believe that, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona
I’m looking to unload on the cheap!).
Today, October 12, 2016, is National Fossil Day™, an effort by the National Park Service to promote public
awareness of fossils and to highlight fossils’ scientific value. This year’s
theme is “Pleistocene life and landscapes.” Imagine, if you will, a place
called Pleistocene Park covering all of North America. We think this would be
way better than that old Jurassic thingamabob, because there would be so many
different kinds of big cats. By the way, in case you are as clueless as we were
about what “Pleistocene” means, it’s basically the period from about 1.6
million years ago to 10,000 years ago. The following list of big cats of the North
American Pleistocene is organized by genus and species.
Genus Dinofelis
These cats, known as “false saber-tooths” because the form
of their teeth was something between a saber-tooth and that of modern species, were
between a leopard and lion in size. Their fossils have been unearthed in
Pleistocene deposits in Eurasia, Africa, and North America.
Genus Homotherium
Human, meet Homotherium. Obviously, this was not
a cat you'd want to keep in your cave. They'd be
perfect for Pleistocene Park, though. By Dantheman9758
at English Wikipedia [CCBY 3.0], via WikimediaCommons.
These were lion-sized saber-toothed cats known from 3
million to 10,000 years ago in North American. In Friesenhahn Cave in Texas, an articulated
skeleton (H. serum) was discovered,
along with the remains of over 30 individuals, including cubs. The teeth of
several young mammoths were also found there, which could be evidence that the
cats specialized in preying on mammoths.
Genus Panthera
Panthera onca
This is your basic jaguar, and yes, they are known from the
Pleistocene, when they ranged well into North America (up to Washington State).
I say “your basic jaguar,” though the Pleistocene cats seem to have been larger
than the modern variety. They have been found mostly where lions were not common, in today’s Florida, Texas,
and Tennessee.
Cast of Panthera atrox skull. A skull like this could
have belonged to a lion in our Pleistocene Park. By
Claire H. from New York City, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via WikimediaCommons.
Panthera leo
Yes, there would be honest-to-goodness lions in our North
American Pleistocene Park. Some scientists consider the American lion (P. atrox) its own species.
Panthera tigris
Tigers were also around in the Pleistocene, and they might
have crossed the land bridge from Asia into North America, thus entering our park.
Genus Felis
Felis concolor
Some of you may recognize this as the scientific name of the
mountain lion, otherwise known as the puma or cougar. These cats are known only
in the Americas, and they appear in the fossil record from about 500,000 years
ago.
Genus Miracinonyx
These cats were similar to modern cheetahs and may have been
a primitive form of cheetah. The genus is known in North America from fossil
remains of two species, M. inexpectatus
and M. trumani. The older M. inexpectatus, from about 3.2 million
years ago, is out of the time range of our park, but M. trumani was from 10,000–20,000 years ago, so they’d fit in
nicely. Their bones were similar to those of modern cheetahs, but their claws
were more fully retractable (modern cheetahs have semi-retractable claws).
In case you're wondering, here you can see the
relative sizes of the three Smilodon species.
That blue man should stop waving and start running! By
Matthew Martyniuk, adapted from 2001 original by Walking with Beasts (Own work)
[GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons.
Genus Smilodon
And so we come to perhaps the most famous of the Pleistocene
cats, the saber-toothed cats of genus Smilodon. These cats are known from North and South America,
and the last of them became extinct about 10,000 years ago. In the famous La
Brea Tar Pits of California, at least 12,000 individuals have been found.
Three species are recognized:
S. gracilis was
the smallest and earliest (2.5 million to 500,000 years ago) of the three. They
lived in what is today the eastern United States.
S. populator was
the largest (the size of a modern lion). They are known from eastern South
America, and they had huge upper canines.
S. fatalis, the
species that would be appropriate for our park, fell between the other two in
size. They are known mostly from Pleistocene deposits in North America, though
they have also been found in South America. When you think “La Brea Tar Pits” (or "Pleistocene Park"), think “Smilodon fatalis”!
And what would a story about Pleistocene cats be
without a saber-toothed cat skull? This one is Smilodon fatalis.
We hope you've enjoyed this brief journey to meet the cats of Pleistocene Park. We really did not know there were so many species of big cats way back then, and they weren't all saber-toothed. Thanks to National Fossil Day, now we know!
Alan Turner, with illustrations by Mauricio Antón,
The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives (New York: Columbia University Press,
1997).
If you are in to big prehistoric cats at all, I think you’ll
find this book an excellent reference. The paperback is reasonably priced, it’s readable, and it’s heavily
illustrated, including 16 color plates. Highly recommended!
The link below is an
Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT
and I could get some coin for our kibble account.
Friends, our wild cousins are in trouble. I’m talking about
tigers and snow leopards (endangered), lions and cheetahs (vulnerable), and
jaguars and leopards (near threatened). I’m talking about big cats whose very existence
is threatened by habitat loss, poaching, and loss of prey. It’s easy to get a
little bit upset by this situation and then say, “Well, that’s awful, but there’s
nothing I can do about it.”
Not true! There are things you can do, and one of those
things is to get involved in a citizen science project called CameraCATalogue.
The Camera CATalogue project is from Panthera, a conservation organization
dedicated to preserving wild cats, including cheetahs, jaguars, leopards,
lions, pumas, snow leopards, and tigers. It is run through Zooniverse, a website that hosts a whole
collection of citizen science projects you can get involved in, from looking
for comets to transcribing US Civil War–period military telegraphs to
classifying cyclone data. Old SoLT has dabbled in a few Zooniverse projects
over the last few years, because she is just that kind of nerd.
Camera CATalogue asks volunteers (that would be you) to look
at photos captured from motion-activated camera-trap stations in Africa and identify
what animals, if any, they see. The data are used to help estimate wild cat
populations and see how they’re changing.
Easy and hard
It’s so easy to get started: You just go to the site, do a
short tutorial, and in just a few mouse-clicks you’re identifying African
wildlife. You’ll be shown a random series of photos from camera traps, and if
there are animals present, you just select the species from a list and indicate
how many there are and which side of the animal is visible (left, right, front,
or back). If you sign up for a Zooniverse account (which is free), you can
participate in forums and create a collection of the cool photos you’ve
identified.
I labeled this section “Easy and hard” because, while it’s
easy to look at a picture of an animal, it’s not always easy to figure out what
the animal is. Sometimes the animal is so close to the camera, you see just a
big brown blurry furry something. Sometimes the animal is at an awkward angle that
doesn’t let you see any identifying characteristics. This seems to happen quite
often with the antelope-shaped animals—at least that’s where old SoLT has
trouble. What you do in these cases is just take your best guess. The photos
are shown to several different people, they all take their best guess, and some
sort of consensus is reached from all those guesses. At least that’s my
understanding of the process.
While Camera CATalogue is about big cats, you should be
prepared to not actually see any big cats. Don’t worry…you will see lots of
animals. We have seen wildebeest, impalas, elephants, zebras, monkeys, rhinos, warthogs,
and more (check out our collection here).
We’ve also seen various jeeps, trucks, tractors, and other vehicles. We’ve seen
people. We’ve seen many, many pictures with nothing in them. And we’ve seen an
African civet (looks sort of catlike, but not a cat), a genet (also catlike, but not a cat), and a serval (cat!).
But we have yet to actually see a lion or leopard or
cheetah.
A typical bunch of photos goes something like this:
You might not see a lot of cats by participating in this
project. You might not see any cats at all. But you never know…the next photo
you see could have a lion in it. Old SoLT finds that she sits down thinking she’ll
spend about ten minutes identifying photos, and an hour later she’s still
sitting there saying, “I’ll just do this one, and then I’ll quit. Ooh, is that a
jackal? Okay, just one more…”
Four endangered cat species. Clockwise from top left:
Amur Tiger, Andean Cat, Flat-headed Cat, Fishing Cat. Credits: Amur Tiger in Louisville Zoo by Ltshears [CC BY-SA 3.0]. Andean Cat by Jim Sanderson [CC BY-SA 3.0 ]. Flat-headed Cat by Jim Sanderson [CC BY-SA 3.0]. Fishing Cat in Tennoji Zoo, Osaka, Japan, by pelican [CC BY-SA 2.0].
For Earth Day 2016,
we thought we’d take a look at how our wild cousins are doing, so we went to
the Internet to collect data, which She of Little Talent put into this table.
She even added subspecies and color-coded it, so it might actually be useful.
As you can see, some species seem to be doing well, but there is still too much
yellow, orange, and red (Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered,
respectively) on that list.
To get a Word or pdf
file of the list, drop an e-mail to roby@robysweet.com
and we’ll send you one.
Conservation Status of Wild Cat Species
Taxonomic
Name
Common
Name
Status (publication date)*
Panthera leo
Lion
Vulnerable
(2015)
P. leo
West African subpopulation
Critically Endangered (2015)
P. leo
persica
Asiatic Lion, Indian Lion
Endangered (2008)
Panthera tigris
Tiger
Endangered
(2015)
P. tigris
altaica
Amur Tiger
Endangered (2011)
P. tigris
amoyensis
South China Tiger
Critically Endangered, possibly extinct in
wild (2015)
P. tigris
corbetti
Indochinese Tiger
Endangered (2011)
P. tigris
jacksoni
Malayan Tiger
Critically Endangered (2015)
P. tigris
sumatrae
Sumatran Tiger
Critically Endangered (2008)
P. tigris
tigris
Bengal Tiger
Endangered (2011)
P. tigris
balica
Bali Tiger
Extinct (1940s)
P. tigris
sondaica
Javan Tiger
Extinct (mid-1970s)
P. tigris virgata
Caspian Tiger
Extinct (1970s)
Panthera onca
Jaguar
Near
Threatened
Panthera uncia
Snow
Leopard
Endangered
Panthera pardus
Leopard
Near Threatened
P. pardus
kotiya
Sri Lankan Leopard
Endangered (2008)
P. pardus
melas
Javan Leopard
Critically Endangered (2008)
P. pardus nimr
Arabian Leopard
Critically Endangered (2008)
P. pardus
orientalis
Amur Leopard
Critically Endangered (2008)
P. pardus
saxicolor
Persian Leopard
Endangered (2008)
Neofilis nebulosa
Clouded
Leopard
Vulnerable
Catopuma badia
Borneo Bay
Cat
Endangered
Pardofelis marmorata
Marbled
Cat
Near
Threatened
Catopuma temminckii
Asiatic
Golden Cat
Near
Threatened
Leptailurus serval
Serval
Least Concern
Caracal caracal
Caracal
Least
Concern
Caracal aurata
African
Golden Cat
Vulnerable
(2015)
Leopardus pardalis
Ocelot
Least
Concern (2015)
Leopardus wiedii
Margay
Near
Threatened (2015)
Leopardus geoffroyi
Geoffroy’s
Cat
Least
Concern (2015)
Leopardus guigna
Guiña
Vulnerable
(2015)
Leopardus jacobita
Andean Cat
Endangered
(2008)
Leopardus tigrinus
Oncilla
Vulnerable
(2008)
L.
tigrinus oncilla
Central American Oncilla, Central American
Little Spotted Cat
![Mongol hunter and cheetah in Tsonjin Boldog, Tuv aimag, Mongolia. Enerelt at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0].](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibn8Ikjk18AV0JfeuCQi-Et4qutE3FhKuc5VSMNzGEWnrtasSC5uUACkbzKn2KaX5rAt-qG4Yk48UpNekRozTCeKRX7V06gpgy3KJGR80jxLuPLojz20EU-zJmWG6YN-xmpSQB_ItCcAnI/s1600/Mongol_hunter_with_tame_cheetah%25282%2529.jpg "Mongol hunter and cheetah in Tsonjin Boldog, Tuv aimag, Mongolia")
