What affects us affects cats
Yes, caracals eat cat and this series of photographs by Simon Smith shows us the determined way that a caracal hunts an African wildcat in a tree. The African wildcat is more capable than a domestic cat but had little chance of escaping a caracal. The caracal climbs the tree and the African wild …
As this photograph was taken in what appears to be a German zoo, I will presume that it is a European wildcat. It as taken by Melanie Kahl of BUND Bundesverband for the BUND Wildkatzen-Symposium 2016. That is the Bund wildcat symposium. ‘Bund’ is a German wildlife conservation group, as I understand it. The …
Artist Peter Hall was on a game drive in the central regions of Kruger National Park in South Africa, reports the EarthTouch News website. A “game drive” is one in which the participants sit in 4×4 vehicles looking out at the animals in the park. On this occasion Peter Hall noticed a small black …
The question in the title has been asked before but I’m asking it again now because National Geographic has just published an article in which they say that “Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows”. My immediate reaction is that National Geographic are wrong. You could say that it is obvious that they are wrong …
At first it mystified me as to why veterinarians describe a current domestic cat obesity epidemic. You never see obese Near Eastern African wildcats. These are the wildcat ancestors of the domestic cat. They are very similar in their behavior and the same in terms of anatomy. They are slender, fit cats. Something has …
If and when domestic cats use their paws to eat food or to drink water they do so in a very specific way. They scoop up the food such as dry food pellets or water from their bowl into their favoured paw and then take the paw to their mouth. Importantly, it is a …
The wildcats of South Africa and Namibia are sometimes referred to as “caffre cats”. They are a species of small wild cat looking like a tabby domestic cat. The Mirriam-Webster dictionary tells us that the phrase “caffre cat” is a variant of “kaffir cat”. And “kafir” means a person who does not believe in …
For a long time, people believed that the first cat was domesticated in ancient Egypt about 3,500 years ago. There are lots of records of domestic cats of that time as we well know. This information is still disseminated on the Internet by well-established websites. However, the theory was challenged about 10 years ago …
