There are about 11 families of carnivores on Earth, the most characteristic and most important of which are cats.
Felines are the most effective controllers in nature, especially for a variety of herbivores. As an integral link in the ecosystem, cats stand at the top of the food chain.
Few animals are as intimidating as felines, especially big cats such as lions, tigers, and cheetahs, who possess sharp claws and muscular bodies, combined with keen sensitivity and extremely strong jumping and balancing abilities, making them the most ferocious of all animals on earth.
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When we look at our own cat, we find that its teeth are particularly long.
The number of teeth in felines is not very large, there are 28 to 30, but they are specialized due to the need for survival. Canine teeth are like sharp swords, sharp and long, and are the main weapon for hunting animals. Molars are divided into split teeth and incisors, the role of which is to tear the skin of the animal first, and then cut the meat. Because of these specialized teeth, felines are particularly suitable for meat eating.
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The head of a feline has a temporal fossa attached to which two spherical muscles are attached to support its powerful jaw, giving the cleft teeth great force when bitten to kill the animal.
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The eyes of all cats give a special feeling. When the light is strong, the pupils of small cats will form a line, and the pupils of big cats such as tigers and lions will become a dot. When the light is dim, their pupils dilate. Feline eyes glow in the dark, giving a sense of fear. Why? In fact, the eyes of felines do not emit light, it seems to glow because there is a group of cells in their retina that can collect faint light and then reflect it, so the eyes are particularly bright. Felines have elastic pupils and a very strong ability to contract, so their vision is very sharp, 6 times that of humans. Keen vision combined with a wide viewing angle makes the visual ability of cats much stronger than other animals, and the visual range is much wider, which is what they must do to survive in the wild.
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Felines have a very keen sense of hearing. There is a small cat in the African savannah, the serval cat, which can hear the subtle cries and movements of rodents far away. Why is the hearing of felines so strong? That's because their ears are like radar antennas that can turn and search for sounds. In addition, their auditory nerves are also very developed, and they can hear sounds that cannot be heard by humans, canines, and many other animals.
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The sense of smell in cats is also very sensitive. Humans have about 5 million olfactory nerves, while felines have about 19 million, so they can smell smells that humans and many other animals can't smell. However, in addition to being used for search, the sense of smell in cats also has some taste functions, because their sense of taste is not very strong. You can observe the domestic cat can find that before eating, they always smell it with their noses, one is to determine whether the food can be eaten or not, and the other is to feel the smell of the food, and they don't have to taste it to know whether it is fresh.
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Cats have long beards, is this for beauty? No, the whiskers of cats have a tactile function. If you cut off a cat's whiskers, it may drill hard into a hole that it can't get into. The ends of a cat's whiskers are connected to many sensory nerves that can be used to probe the surroundings, such as objects and the distance between them. Beards can also reflect the health of felines. If a tiger's whiskers are white, long, and pointed, it is in a good nutritional state; if its whiskers are yellow or curved, it means that the hair follicles of its whiskers have been injured or the nutritional conditions are not good. Beards are very important for cats.
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All cats have 250 bones. The cervical spine of felines is relatively short, but strong. The spine is not very tightly connected. The limbs are relatively thick, with strong muscles attached to the bones, just like bodybuilders, it is almost difficult to see fat on the body, which is why cats have extremely explosive power. Take cheetahs, for example. The cheetah is slender, the lumbar spine is not tightly connected, the skin is very loose, and its back arches like a bow when running, and then bounces off, running very fast. Felines have shorter legs than canines, but the cheetah is an exception, as it is the closest of the cats to the canine family and the fastest.
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Feline claws are like hooks, sticking out when used and shrinking into a sheath when not in use. Among mammals, cats are the only ones who can retract their claws. A major feature of this retractable claw is that it touches the ground with the soles of its feet when walking. Because the soles of the feet are meat pads, they walk silently. Claws are powerful weapons for hunting. Usually, the claw is pulled by the ligament, the ligament is in a tightening state, the muscle is in a relaxed state, the claw is contained in the sheath; when necessary, as long as the muscle is contracted and the ligament is relaxed, the claw will come out. The claws and palms work together to become a powerful weapon for felines.
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As the saying goes, "a cat has nine lives", describing a cat falling from a high place and falling to death. Why are other animals, including humans, seriously injured or even killed when they fall from a height, but cats are not easily injured? This involves an extremely strong ability of cats – the ability to balance. A cat falls from a high place and lands safely in an instant. In fact, there is a process here: when a cat finds itself out of balance, the balance organs in its brain and ears immediately receive the signal and then begin the first action - to twist the body. When twisting the body, it first stretches out its forelimbs so that it does not flip after it is twisted; then, it turns its head and hind limbs and shakes its tail away, in order to maintain balance when it lands. At the moment of touching the ground, the feline's strong forelimbs, combined with its deeply sunken collarbone and fleshy palms, allow it to withstand the impact. When touching the ground, the cat also relaxes the muscles of the whole body to avoid joints and muscle sprains. This is the extremely strong balance that felines have. Cheetahs are accustomed to dragging food to trees to eat, and they can carry a prey equivalent to almost half their body weight up to the tree, which also proves that cats have perfect balance.
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Tigers can jump from 2.2 meters to 2.4 meters, which is a little higher than their own body length, while cats have a stronger jumping ability, reaching 4.5 times their own body length.
The cat's ability to jump and balance, combined with the action of various organs of the body, makes it the most ferocious animal on the planet, the product of a combination of strength and cruelty.
Predation is very important for all animals, especially felines, as they eat meat and their food is generally live. What kind of predation do cats take?
There are generally several ways for cats to prey: the first is to bite off the throat of the prey; the second is to jump on the back of the prey and bite off its spine; the third is to lie on the back of the prey and bite off its cervical vertebrae. The canine teeth of a feline are like a sharp sword that can be inserted directly into the bone cracks of the prey's spine. Sometimes they also use their palms. In India, the skull of a wild boar was found to have been cracked by a tiger with its palm, and the strength of one palm was about 2,000 kilograms per square centimeter.
The jaguar's predation method is relatively simple, it never bites the neck of the prey, but directly bites its skull, and its upper and lower jaws are very powerful, and it can penetrate the skull of the prey.
Cheetahs prey on the throat of their prey. Its canine teeth are relatively small, so it can only be used in this way to suffocate the prey.
Cheetahs hunt in two ways. One is called "sitting and waiting",
This is similar to tigers and lions living in forests or savannas. Cheetahs often run out of the grass suddenly, and this strategy is often suitable for forest areas where the ground is not very open and food is relatively abundant. Solitary cats tend to adopt this wait-and-wait strategy to prey. Another way cheetahs hunt is called "chase".
This strategy is often adapted to open grasslands, and lions take this approach. After predation, cheetahs usually drag their prey to a tree to hang it to avoid being preyed upon by other animals.
Felines also have some hunting techniques, mainly the following four types:
Get as close as you can. Felines lurk as close to their prey as possible when they hunt until they suddenly jump up at a certain distance. Lions and tigers, for example, because their prey may run faster than them, they will get as close to their prey as possible, and then rely on their explosive power to catch them before the prey has reached the maximum speed.
Swarm hunting. The Serengeti grassland in Africa is where wildebeest and zebra are more distributed, and it is also the place where lions are most distributed. However, due to the open area and too little concealment, lions have difficulty approaching their prey, so they tend to hunt in groups. For example, a lion runs in the upwind direction of the prey, so that the wind will blow the lion's scent down, and the prey will run downwind, while the other lion is already there. This is how lions work together to use the power of their swarms to capture prey.
Predation tendencies. All big cats, including many small cats, have a tendency to attack the old, weak, sick and disabled when preying. The reason is simple – these prey are easier to catch than strong individuals.
Generally do not catch potentially dangerous prey. Cats are intelligent and generally don't catch potentially dangerous prey, such as elephants, African bison, and giraffes unless their group is really in short supply, and this "meal" can meet the needs of the group. In addition, only if the group is large enough, they can go on an adventure. Usually, they avoid whenever they find a potential danger.
The act of reproduction is essential for all animals, because only reproduction is possible to perpetuate the race. What are the characteristics of cat breeding?
Seasonal selectivity. The breeding of cats has a strong seasonality, because the choice of seasons has great benefits for the continuation of the race. Take the Siberian tiger, for example. The estrus period of The Siberian tiger often begins in late winter, that is, from December of the first year to January of the following year, and lasts until March, which is the coldest season in northeast China and is a good time for them to hunt. During this time, they will get a lot of food. Siberian tiger cubs are born around May and June, when the weather has begun to warm. By the time the next winter comes, the tiger is basically old enough to wean and hunt with its mother. Therefore, the selectivity of the season is to ensure the survival rate of offspring.
Singleness of the seasons. Most cats live alone and only perform monosym mating between male and female in a certain season. Felines have a strong mate selection, that is, not all two members of the opposite sex can complete mating during the mating season.
Reproductive advantage. Some animals fight for a mate in order to give themselves an advantage in reproduction and to allow their offspring to reproduce more. In felines, this fight occurs mainly in lion flocks. However, fighting consumes too much energy and is not cost-effective for lions, so male lions often solve problems not by fighting, but by a strategy called "respect". Lion teeth and claws are lethal weapons, and even if a one-year-old cub fights a five-year-old adult lion, there is no guarantee that the five-year-old lion will not be injured.
Community Behavior. Lions reproduce collectively and raise their young children collectively.
When the lioness goes out to hunt, the male lion stays in the group to protect the cubs, because they are much stronger than the lionesses and are more suitable for guarding the cubs, which is a division of labor and a community behavior. The so-called community behavior is that individuals with different divisions of labor come together to complete a task together.
The body structure of felines, combined with their extraordinary variety of abilities and survival skills, makes them the most effective controllers in nature. However, when faced with a more ferocious "animal", humans, the fate of felines, especially big cats, is in jeopardy.
Species of felines
How many species of cats are there on Earth today? There are 1 family and 5 genera, namely cat genus, leopard genus, lynx genus, cheetah genus and clouded leopard genus.
Cat genus
There are 25 species of cats. Among them, there are the following representative types.
Golden Cat:
It is mainly distributed in some parts of Africa. This is a very peculiar animal, not very large, the color is red, black and spotted, of which the black golden cat is the most precious one.
Borneo Red Cat:
It is mainly distributed on the island of Kalimantan in South Asia. The Borneo Red Cat is the hardest to see with no living specimens and no photographs.
ocelot:
It is widely distributed in China, from Yungui to northeast China, there are many subspecies distribution, is a relatively common cat species.
House cat:
There are now about 500 million in the world, and there are hundreds of breeds, making it the most widely distributed of cats.
Jungle Cat:
It is widespread, spanning continents of Asia and Africa, from dense forests to cold wastelands.
puma:
This is the largest of the cats, belonging to the same genus as the domestic cat and is closely related.
Genus Lynx
A common feature of lynx is tufts of hair on the ears, a total of 5 species.
Canadian Lynx:
It is mainly distributed in Canada and the United States.
Fox Cat:
Distributed in the grassland regions of Africa, it is a very beautiful animal.
lynx:
It is widely distributed in China and can be seen in zoos.
bobcat:
It is mainly distributed in Canada and the United States. It is relatively small among lynxes, and although it is called "cat", it is not actually a cat, and it has tufts of hair on its ears.
Tiger Cat:
Also known as the Southern European Lynx, it is mainly distributed in southern Europe.
Leopard genus
This genus is a big cat with 5 species.
lion:
It is divided into two subspecies, the Asiatic lion and the African lion.
tiger:
There are 8 subspecies, 3 of which are extinct, and 5 subspecies exist – the Siberian tiger, the South China tiger, the Indochina tiger, the Bengal tiger, and the Sumatran tiger.
Jaguar (jaguar):
Mainly found in the Americas, they can be found throughout South America.
leopard:
Leopards are widely distributed, from Asia all the way to large areas of Africa. In Southeast Asia, there is a black panther whose coat turns black. The leopard is a very ferocious animal.
snow leopard:
It is mainly distributed in cold areas, and there are snow leopards in Qinghai and Tibet in China, where there are snow-capped mountains, and in Nepal. It is a feline with the highest altitude in its range and is also a very valuable feline.
Cheetah genus
There is only one species, and that is the cheetah. This is the fastest running animal in the world.
Clouded leopard genus
Mainly distributed in China's Yunnan and Southeast Asia regions, it is a very endangered animal that is difficult to see.