Wild Cats. General information on wild cats , the ancestry of wild cats, classification of wild cats, wild cats pictures and more...

It has often been said of the wild 'big cats' - and of many of the smaller wild cats too - that they are the perfect predator, a killing machine, designed with every part specially tuned for the art of hunting and catching prey.


Wild Cats Ancestry

All the species of wild cat have evolved from a distant, but common ancestry.

For many years zoologists and taxonomists have argued over the exact classification of the feline species. In looking at the phylogeny, which is the study of the evolutionary development and history of a species, modern wild cat ancestry can be traced back well over two million years.


From fossil remains of the various species of big cat - lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar - it has been possible to piece together an overview of the various relationships between today's cat species.

A common, but distant ancestry leave all wild cat species with fundamental similarities. However through evolutionary adaptation, marked differences now distinguish one species from another - those built for speed over land and others built for agility in the tree tops - those who hunt by day and those who are nocturnal in pursuit of their prey.

Wild Cats Classification

There are 36 species of wild cats. Today's thinking places the 36 species of wild cat family - Felidae - into three basic groups or sub-families - Felinae, Pantherinae and Acinonychinae, with its sole member Acinonyx jubatus - the Cheetah.

Within the sub-families Felinae and Pantherinae the species are split into various sub classifications or genera - a total of 13 genera in the Felinae sub-family and four in the Pantherinae sub-family, whilst the sub-family Acinonychinae, as already mentioned has one genus.

Fur and Markings - The fur of the cat serves two distinct purposes - firstly it protects the animal against the extremes of its environment and secondly serves as camouflage to make the cat less easy to spot against the background of its habitat.


The Range of the cat - In terms of the wild cat, the word 'range, can have two distinct meanings. Firstly the range of a wild cat species can be interpreted as its distribution or geographical spread across a large area - 'ranging' across countries or contents. Secondly the 'home range' of an individual wild cat is broadly its 'neighbourhood' - the area in which it lives.


It is said that cats in the wild are solitary animals - whilst this is true for the majority of the wild cat species for most of the time - there are times when the cat can become a 'social' animal, sharing its daily life with others of its species.

Wild Cats in Captivity

For thousands of years man has caged and enclosed many of the wild cat species.