A Michael Broad Blog
Although there is only one true desert-living small cat, the sand cat, there are four other small wild cat species that can make a living in the desert: Pallas’s cat, bobcat, Andean cat and pampas cat. Bobcats occur in four deserts of North America. The bobcat has a very wide distribution which is why …
Natural selection and selection pressures over millions of years of evolution is the reason why the Andean mountain cat has a predominantly grey coat while the sand cat has a sandy-coloured, even coat. These small wild cats illustrate how evolution works. The process is not about cats consciously adapting to the habitat where they …
On the internet, people ask if sand cats can be tamed and therefore be a pet. I can see why because this small wild cat species is attractive and not dissimilar to a domestic cat in appearance. There are two points to cover. Firstly, sand cats should not be forced into being an exotic …
If you are up to scratch on your wild cat species, you might have heard of this trio. Two are small, about the size of a domestic cat, while the third is medium-sized. The video comes from San Diego Zoo. The lady who provides the voice-over has, I think, made quite a nice selection …
The sand cat was discovered in 1856 by Captain Victor Loche at Ngouca in the sand dunes of eastern Algeria near the Libyan border. He was on an 1856-1857 French expedition to the Algerian section of the Sahara. He was listing and describing the mammals and birds of the area for the book Catalogue …
A study has come to the astonishing conclusion that the diminutive sand cat, about the size of a small domestic cat at 7.5 pounds, has an enormous home range in Morocco. Or, perhaps, it doesn’t have a home range at all and is nomadic. Either way the revelation is extraordinary. In Morocco female sand …
Do cats have the quickest reflexes of all land-based mammals? The research on this topic it a little bit sketchy but strong anecdotal evidence does indeed point to the fact that cats have the quickest reflexes. I’m going to rely at least partly on videos on TikTok showing cats attacking snakes. It allows me …
Simple: sand cats get sufficient water from their prey animals to survive without drinking free-standing water for most of the year. We should remind ourselves that the prey of the sand cat is made up of between 70%-80% water. Humans are about 60% water. A couple of researchers: WG Heptner and AA Sludskii in …
