Wild Cat Facts for Kids

This is a page on the wild cats. It is written for children. Wild cats live in the wild, in forests, by the water, on grassy plains and in dusty deserts. They are all over the planet but you hardly see them. To protect themselves, they are secretive. They are very similar in behavior and appearance to our domestic cats.

Most of the people who know the wild cats well (the “experts”) agree that there are 36 different types of wild cats. Each one is called a “species” of wild cat because it is different to the others. The problem with the wild cats is that even the experts are not sure how many different species of wild cat there are in the world.

This is because wild cats all behave in nearly the same way. And although they look different, they are actually not that different. This makes it difficult to decide whether a particular wild cat is different to another one. People argue about this. You will see slightly different lists of wild cat species. The differences are normally about the leopard cat, the clouded leopard, the Chinese desert cat and the group of cats called the “wildcats”. You also might see differences on the Pampas cat.

Children should always be careful when describing the wild cats. It is sensible to start talking or writing about them by saying or writing, “We are not absolutely sure how many different species of wild cat there are. We believe there are 36 at the moment….”

Just below on this page you will see a large picture. You’ll see all the different wild cats. They are in groups inside light grey areas. Each group has a label. For example, at the top left is a group of four cats which is the “Lynx lineage“. What does this mean? Well, you can see that this group of cats are more like each other than the other cats. They look almost the same. If you went back thousands or millions of years, you would find that these four cats have the same parents. They are a kind of family and a bit different to the other groups of cats in this picture. The same thing applies to the other 7 groups.

All cats are flesh (or meat) eaters. They eat animals and sometimes insects, even plants! The snow leopard eats quite a lot of a certain kind of plant. The experts call flesh eating animals: carnivores. The Latin name for the animals that are carnviores, which is used by experts is “carnivora“. The family of cats is also given a Latin name: Felidae. The video shows you how to say these words. Latin is an old language that comes from Ancient Rome. Experts still like to use latin.

There are four wild cats that are not part of a group. You can see that because they are not grouped together in a light grey area. They are not part of a group of wild cats because each one is different from all the other wild cat species.

Below the picture I explain the important bits of information about each cat. If you want to read more and see more pictures you can search for information on this website. But it is written for adults. That does not mean you can’t or should not read it 🙂

 
An important point that should be made before finishing is that a lot of the wild cats might disappear forever if people are not more careful. The tiger is a good example. What happens is that people kill the animals that feeds the tiger. So, the tiger has less food. That makes it harder to live.

Also, people use the same land that the tiger uses. People don’t leave the tiger enough space to live in. That also makes life harder for the tiger.

Also, some people kill the tiger so that they can eat it. That sounds horrible but it is true. They think it makes them stronger and better. Gradually over many years there are less and less tigers in the world. And then, one day, people might find that the only tigers left in the world are in zoos. This would make most people unhappy. But people are unable at the moment to change things.