Wild Cat Hybrid Facts For Kids

This is a page on cats that have a wild cat in their family history. It is written for children and people who like to read plain English and see great pictures of cats.

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Kids like wild cat hybrids. It is like having a wild cat as a friend. Wild cat hybrids are like big domestic cats with a wild look. What are they? The word “hybrid” means a cat that has parents that are two different types of cat. For a wild cat hybrid it means the father, grandpa or great-grandpa (and so on) is a wild cat and the mother is a domestic cat or a hybrid cat. Basically, there is a wild cat in the family somewhere and he has had kittens.

Wild cats living in wild places sometimes choose to mate with domestic cats. It happens naturally. It can happen when the wild cat is near to where people live. Perhaps the wild cat is looking for food. Probably the most common wild cat to mate naturally with domestic cats is the Scottish wildcat. It has happened so often that some people think that all the Scottish wildcats are wild cat hybrids.

Also, sometimes people who are cat breeders put a wild cat with a domestic cat in a cage and hope that the two cats will mate and create a wild cat hybrid kitten.The picture above shows this.

The most popular wild cat hybrids, which are created when people deliberately put a wild cat and a domestic cat together are the Bengal cat and Savannah cat. The first wild cat hybrid in America was the Bengal cat. It was created in the 1960s. It is still very popular.

The biggest and most expensive wild cat hybrids have a wild cat as a father and a domestic cat as a mother. These are called “first filial” wild cat hybrids. “First Filial” means the first son or daughter kitten. People write it down like this: F1.

“Second filial” means the second generation kitten whose father is a first filial male cat and whose mother is a domestic cat. The chart below shows this:

Here is a list of wild cat hybrids which tells you which wild cat is the father.

• Savannah – wild cat father is the Serval
• Bengal – Asian leopard cat
• Safari – Geoffroy’s cat
• Kellas cat – Scottish wildcat
• Punjabi domestic – Indian wildcat
• Chausie – Jungle cat
• Jambi – Fishing cat
• Caracat – Caracal
• Machbagral or Bagral – Fishing cat

There are more which I have not listed but they are not named or they are very rare.  You can read about the wild cats listed above on PoC  – this website. Go to this page and use the search box. It works great.

Some More Facts

• The tallest domestic cat in the world is a female F1 Savannah cat called Magic. She is 17.1 inches tall at the shoulder. You can read about her on this page (it is written for parents).
• The world’s largest F2 Savannah cat is Motzie. You can read about how he caught a snake (written for parents).
• A Savannah cat called “Trouble” is the all time world’s tallest domestic cat. Trouble was killed when he escaped his home (page also written for parents). We don’t know what killed him. If you know please write a comment. Trouble was taller than Magic at 19 inches to the shoulder.
• The world’s most famous breeders of Savannah cats is A1 Savannahs in Oklahoma, USA.
• Wild cat hybrids are domestic cats only they have wild blood in them and need more attention from their owners. The F1 has over 50% wild cat blood. The F3 has 12.5% wild cat in him. The F5 is called a true domestic cat.
• The F1 Savannah cat is probably the world’s most expensive cat costing around $30,000. They are very special cats.
• The King of Morocco has an F2 Savannah cat. Kathrin Stucki of A1 Savannahs took the cat to the king on a plane.

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Acknowledgment: The idea for the chart comes from the work of Sarah Hartwell.