The marbled cat is a rare and small species of wild cat living in Southeast Asia.”Species” means a type or sort of wild cat that is different from the other wild cats. It likes living in trees. It is very good at climbing trees and walking along branches. It weighs between 4 and a half pounds to about 11 pounds, which makes it about the same size as a slightly small domestic cat. Not much is known about this cat as it lives in forests and is secretive.
What It Looks Like
What is noticeable is the long body and very long tail. The coat is special. The picture does not show parts of the coat that look like marble. That is where the cat got his name from. It looks a bit like a very small clouded leopard. The body is slender. The tail is bushy. The coat is thick and soft. The background color to the spots and blotches is a gray-brown color. It can also be a yellow-gray or a red-brown. The pattern on the head looks like the margay, another small wild cat that lives in the Americas. The feet are large.
Where It Lives
As mentioned, it likes living in trees and therefore needs to live in forests of different kinds in the countries where it is found. These countries are: Bhutan (a country north of India that includes a part of the Himalayan mountains), Brunei (on the island of Borneo), Cambodia, China, India, the island of Sumatra which is part of Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (which was called Burma), Nepal (also to the north of India), Thailand and Vietnam. Some of the forests that the cat lives in are deciduous (the leaves fall off in autumn) and some are evergreen. Some forests are on the hills (hill-forest).
Behavior
The cat probably eats more birds than other animals. It also hunts squirrels, rats and perhaps frogs. The cat’s large paws, long body and long tail are all parts of this cat’s anatomy that helps to make it a great tree climber. The tail helps the cat keep its balance.
As for the sounds it makes, we think these are like domestic cat sounds. For example, meows, purrs, hisses and spits etc.
Mother cats are pregnant for 66-82 days. This is an estimate as we don’t know that much about this cat. Kittens suddenly become active at 65 days old. Cats are sexually mature (able to mate and produce kittens) at about 22 months of age. A cat kept in a zoo lived about 12 years of age.
Dangers To The Marbled Cat
We don’t know how many there are but the number of marbled cats in the world is getting smaller all the time. The main reason is that the forests that it needs to live in are being cut down by people who sell the wood to make money. Every year a bit more than 1% of the forest is chopped down. Less forest means less cats. Another problem is that the fur is very nice and people kill the cat for its fur. Also people in the areas where it lives like to eat this cat. Sometimes is it killed by farmers because it eats their chickens.
