The Wakhan Corridor is an east-west narrow strip from Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan to Xinjiang, China, located in a valley between the southern end of the Pamir Plateau and the northern section of the Hindu Kush Mountains. After flowing 160 kilometers from east to west in the valley, the Inner Wakhan River turns ninety degrees and flows north. On the corridor, which averages 4,000 meters above sea level, strong winds ravage and are cold all year round. In this environment, a vicious cat was found in the canyon.
It is widely distributed in East Africa, South Africa, Central Africa and the Middle East, West Asia and other places, spanning two continents in Asia and Africa, and can be seen in Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and even India. The cat also has a wide range of habitats, living in dry grasslands and semi-desert areas, but also in woodlands, tropical savannas and shrublands, and even in the mountain deserts of Afghanistan at an altitude of 4,000 meters.
Lynx are sometimes referred to as desert lynxes or African lynxes. The face of the cat is small and round, with its own black lip line, and the upper part of the eyes also has black hairs similar to eyebrows, which looks very spirited, and the lively and mischievous eyes make people feel feminine and feminine.
As a medium-sized cat, the cat is long, thin, slender, and muscular. Data from the Animal World show that the cat is about 60-75 cm long, the tail is 20-30 cm long, the shoulder height is 38-50 cm, and the weight is 13-18 kg.
The whole body is covered with short yellow-brown hairs, and the underside of the young cat's body has inconspicuous red spots, while the adult cat has no other stripes except for black spots above the eyes.
Depending on the habitat, the coat color of the cat has different variations such as burgundy, gray, and sand color, and there are also blackened cats, which look like blackened jaguars.
The most famous feature of the cat is its slender, pointed, triangular black ears. The ears are covered with thick white fuzz on the front and thick black hairs on the back, even longer than the length of the ears.
Therefore, in Afghanistan, Turkey and other countries, people call the cat "black ears".
The top of the ear grows a tuft of soft black hairs, like "Tianshan Tongmao" combing two long ponytails, which is very cute. These small braids are erect in their primers and gradually droop as they age.
The ears of the cat are extremely flexible, can be freely rotated back and forth, left and right, and each ear is controlled by more than 20 muscle fibers.
The cat's ears are not only its detection radar when looking for prey, but also serve as an early warning radar, which can help it detect natural enemies or other predators in time.
Unlike social cats such as lions, the lynx is a reclusive nature, dislikes companions, and is accustomed to mavericks.
The cat is super thirst-tolerant and can survive for long periods of time without water. At this time, they mainly rely on the body fluids in the prey to obtain water, so as to meet the body's need for water.
At the same time, the lynx is a very territorial feline, and like lions, adult cats mark the extent of their territory through excrement such as urine and feces.
Males have a territory of more than 200 square kilometers, while females have much smaller territory of about 50 square kilometers. If they invade their field, they will definitely give you color to see.
The lone ranger cats on the steppe are first-class hunting masters, although they are small, but more ferocious, exquisite predation skills and their unparalleled speed, becoming the killer of birds and small beasts.
The nocturnal cat is good at hunting rodents and burrowing hares; occasionally, it also actively attacks medium-sized ungulates, such as antelopes.
Their jumping abilities are superb, and their ordinary fence fences are useless. When night falls, they quietly climb over the fence and go to the farmer's house to hunt chickens and other poultry to fight tooth sacrifices. So, in Africa the cat became an animal like a mouse.
The cat is very bold, even dare to hunt young ostriches, you know that adult ostriches can kick a lioness with their thick thighs! There were times when cats could also snatch prey from the mouths of jackals, natural enemies of wild animals.
The cat is a picky eater, very particular about eating, and it hates the internal organs and fur of mammals. After killing its prey, it often throws its internal organs aside; and it hates to eat a mouthful of hair, so it will bite off the rabbit's skin to avoid eating a mouthful of hair, and it is really a cleaning habit! But they treat the birds they catch in particular. Not only will they not dislike their hair, but they can also tolerate rotten bird meat.
The lynx is best known for its bird-catching skills, their super bouncing power and speed, which can catch birds in flight when landing. Amazingly, sometimes a cat can hunt more than two birds at once. Xuelinggu only wants to say that he obviously has a super high appearance, and the cat has to rely on his own strength to eat.
Before predation, the cat is very tolerant, hiding in the grass or on tall trees for a long time, when the careless bird does not find it at all, glides over it, it jumps up with all its strength, jumps into the air 3.7 meters, pierces and holds the bird's body with its sharp claws, throws the bird to the ground, and then opens its large mouth and bites the bird's neck with its pointed cone-like tiger teeth.
Generally speaking, animals jump into the air, the body will be more stiff, but the cat will not, with a soft but flexible spine, the cat can rotate its body in the air. Even if they jump high, they can easily correct their posture and then land on all fours smoothly.
It can tolerate the feathers on the bird, often catching the bird and even swallowing the raw flesh of the hair, regardless of whether the feathers are plucked or not; In the wild, even if the carcass of a bird is found, it can condescend to the nobility and devour the carrion of the bird, which is too fond of bird meat.
Although the number of cats is still large, the wild living environment is facing the squeeze of human development and illegal poaching due to fur, which is not optimistic at present. In our country, when you see a cat buying and selling, trouble you directly call the police. I hope that everyone will still "cloud breeding cats" to let them live freely in the wild.
Xuelinggu Nature Lab/Production Reference: Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences