Wildcats

You will learn about lions, tigers, cheetahs, and many other cats that live in the wild on this page.

The wildcats’ diet consists of meat alone. After a kill, the wild cat will gorge itself on the flesh of its prey, then go for several days digesting the meat, before it hunts again. A cats’ rough tongue can scrape flesh from bones as well as draw food into the mouth. All cats except the sand cat need water regularly.

There are many different places that wildcats live. The biggest and most powerful of all wildcats, the tiger, used to live in the forests of India, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, tigers are an endangered species and are clinging to survival in a few tropical forest reserves, and in swamps such as those of the Ganges River Delta in India. The tiger is one of the few wildcats who enjoy swimming. In fact, tigers living in the tropical rainforests of Asia swim as a way of keeping cool.

Cats

The mighty lion used to roam all of Europe and Asia as well as in Africa more than 10,000 years ago. Today, except for a small population in the Gir forest of India, lions are found only in Africa.

The biggest cats to climb trees regularly, leopards, live in wooded grasslands in Africa and Southern Asia. After a kill, the leopard carries the prey into a tree because if the leopard were to eat it on the ground, packs of hyenas and jackals may come and they then would soon scrounge the food from the lone leopard.

The jaguar is the only large wildcat that lives on the American continents. It also lives throughout South America and the Southwestern United States. Forest jaguars swim well and have even been known to kill crocodiles.

Now it’s time to learn where the fastest land mammal in the world lives. Cheetahs used to live in India and throughout Africa, but today the main population lives in Namibia and Zimbabwe (Southern Africa).

In all cats, the five senses of touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell are more developed than they are in humans. Cats have a special organ located on the roof of their mouth called the Jacobson’s organ, which allows them to taste-smell by drawing the scent-laden air over it. When it is too dark for a cat to see, it can still hear prey or danger and successfully feel its way around with its whiskers, its feet, and the sensitive outer hairs of its body and tail fur. In darkness, the cats’ pupils expand to an enormous size in order to allow as much light in as possible. In a bright light, wildcats’ pupils squeeze to tighter circles. Cats can see about six times better than humans at night because their eyes have an extra layer of reflecting cells (called Tapetum Lucidum) which absorb light. These reflectors shine in the dark when a cats’ eyes are caught in the glare of a light.