Felines are both elegant and charming, and now the objects of people's cloud cat sucking are not limited to domestic cats, and wild cats have also become "internet celebrities". However, there are about 40 species of wild cats in the world, and even veteran feline lovers can hardly call out the names of all cats. Today's zoology in the order of evolution, to give you a comprehensive introduction to the modern cat family of 8 families.
Phylogeny of felines
Modern cats, known in academia as true cats, are distinguished from prehistoric saber-toothed tigers and cat-hunting cats. The common ancestor of true cats was a group of ancient cats that lived in eastern Asia 11 million years ago, called pillar cats. Both the column cat and the false cat are descendants of the original cat, the ancestor of the saber-toothed tiger.
leopard
10.8 million years ago, a group of column cats in Central Asia evolved into the earliest leopard subfamily. The leopard subfamily split into two groups 6.4 million years ago: the clouded leopard genus and the leopard genus. Subsequently, the genus Clouded Leopard split into two species of clouded leopard, and the leopard genus was divided into a subgenus of leopard and a subgenus of tiger, the two subgenuses diverged about 3.8 million years ago, the subgenus leopard including lion, leopard and jaguar, and the subgenus tiger including tiger and snow leopard.
The leopard subfamily is a large and medium-sized cat, with five leopard species in the seven cat families, and the two clouded leopards being the ninth and tenth largest cats, respectively. They are the largest extant land predators, and are adept at hunting ungulates in ambushes, killing prey that weighs seven times as much. Lions and tigers can hunt nearly a ton of bison, and occasionally hunt thick-skinned behemoths such as elephants and rhinos, making them the kings of mighty beasts.
tiger
As the first of the family to split up, the leopard subfamily is the most distant and the most different from the other seven younger brothers. One of its most notable features is that many species of the family can make loud roars because their hyoid bones are not fully ossified and have thick elastic fibers under the vocal cords. But the hyoid bones of the snow leopard and the clouded leopard were completely ossified, so they could not roar, but instead the howl of the snow leopard and the low groan of the clouded leopard.
The leopard family is one of the most brilliant families of real cats, including tigers, jaguars and clouded leopards living in dense forests, lions adapting to open meadows, snow leopards in high mountains, and all-round leopards. Beginning 300,000 years ago, lions defeated saber-toothed tigers and completed the conquest of five continents of the world, but 10,000 years ago, the lion's world supremacy was replaced by humans.
Sunda clouded leopard
In addition to the leopard subfamily, the seven major families belong to the cat subfamily. The first to split among the cat subfamily was the Golden Cat family, which now has two or three species – the Asian Golden Cat, the Bornean Golden Cat and the Cloud Cat. Their common ancestors originated 9.4 million years ago, and since then they have lived in the dense rainforests of Southeast Asia.
The golden cat family has been differentiated for a long time, and the divergence evolution is obvious, and before the genome test was carried out in 2006, no experts classified the golden cat and the cloud cat into one family (they have been differentiated for 5.4 million years). The common feature of the genus Golden Cat is the fur that varies between orange-red and gray, distinguishing it from the brownish-yellow color of lions and mountain lions, although the African Golden Cat and the Latin American Slender-waisted Cat also have this color variation. The body color and markings of the cloud cat are very similar to the clouded leopard.
Asian Golden Cat
Therefore, taxonomic experts in the era of naturalism tended to put the Asian golden cat, the Borneo golden cat and the African golden cat together, and the cloud cat and the clouded leopard together. Now it seems that these two groups are not very close relatives, and the same coat color is just convergent evolution.
The golden cat family is not similar in shape but similar in god. As the second branch of the true cat family and the first branch of the cat subfamily, the golden cat family is quite different from other ethnic groups, and is quite similar to the leopard subfamily. For example, they are known for their fierce temperament, and local residents are accustomed to classifying golden cats as tigers and leopards, and China calls golden cats red leopards and Thailand fire tigers. Legend has it that the golden cat is the king of the cat family, the leopard is afraid of the tiger, and the tiger is afraid of the golden cat. Cloud cats have also long been considered members of the leopard subfamily. The Asian golden cat also has a spotted color, which is very similar to the cloud cat.
The Golden Cat family is the most mysterious family, people know very little about their living habits, from the existing small number of studies, the golden cat and cloud cat feeding habits are more mixed, including small mammals, birds, frogs and lizards. They all feed on small vertebrates, but all retain the ability to put down large prey and hunt small deer.
Cloud cat
About 8.5 million years ago, a group of cats separated from the main evolutionary trunk of the feline family, and they subsequently moved from Asia to Africa, thus laying the foundation for the cat family. About 5.6 million years ago, the cat family branched out in Africa and gradually evolved into three medium-sized cat families in two genera in Africa today: the serval cat of the genus Serval cat, the vicious cat of the genus Lynx, and the Golden Cat of Africa.
The members of this family are very exotic in appearance, and their tails are relatively short, only one-third of their body length (most cats are more than half). The ears of the serval cat are large and round; the ears of the lynx are long, and the tufts of hair at the tip of the ears are also long, which is more exaggerated than that of the lynx.
Vicious cat
Both Serval and Lynx have disproportionately long legs, but Serval cats are tall and thin, and Lynx cats are tall and stout. Traditional taxonomists focused too much on the differences between the three and failed to notice what they had in common, and modern molecular genetics techniques have finally reunited the three long-lost brothers.
All three brothers are medium-sized cats, but have taken different evolutionary routes. Lynx and serval cats live on the savannah, while the African Golden Cat is inhabited by the African rainforest. Serval cats specialize in hunting mice, while lynxes and African golden cats eat small animals under 5 kilograms, but also hunt many large prey, lynx are good at catching small antelopes, and African golden cats like to catch monkeys.
Because of their quite personality, lynxes and serval cats have always been very popular pets. But they belong to nature, it is difficult for humans to create a good living environment for them, and I would like to remind you again that wild animals are not suitable for domestication.
Bush Cat
At the same time that the cats migrated to Africa, a group of Asian cats also migrated to North America. The tiger cat family diverged from this group of cats about 8 million years ago, but it was not until about 3 to 2 million years ago that they invaded South America and ushered in a major development. The invasion of the tiger cat genus caused a bloody storm in South America, and many native marsupials were extinct, while the tiger cats expanded to all corners of Latin America.
About 2.9 million years ago, the genus Tiger Cat split into a subgenus of Tiger Cat and a subgenus of Prairie Cat. The tiger cat subgenus later developed into today's tiger cat and long-tailed tiger cat, both of which live in the tropical rainforests of Latin America. The subgenus of prairie cats is divided into two subgenuses, the subgenus of Joe's cat includes the small spotted tiger cat in the Amazon rainforest, the South American forest cat in the temperate rainforest of Chile, and the Joe's cat in the Argentine savannah; the prairie cat subgenera includes the Andean bobcat (yamagata), and the prairie, swamp, and mountain triathlon South American prairie cat.
Joe's cat
The tiger cat family has only 18 pairs of chromosomes, one less than other cat families, and this feature may be derived from a chromosomal variation of their common ancestor (we humans also have one pair less chromosome than apes).
Tiger cats are the largest genus of cats, and they are very prosperous in Latin America. We don't know exactly how many species of cats there are, but the main controversy is in the genus Tiger Cat. Depending on the classification system, the genus may be as few as 7 species as possible or as many as 10 species. In 1994, some scholars divided the prairie cat into three species according to morphological differences: prairie cat, Pampas cat and Pantana cat. In recent years, genetic experts have divided the small spotted tiger cat into two species, north and south.
Pampas cat
With the exception of tiger cats, which are medium-sized cats, members of the genus Tiger cats are all small cats, of which the forest cat is only 1 to 3 kg, which is enough to rank among the most petite cats. The small tiger cat genus feeds on small vertebrates such as mice, birds and lizards, and Joe's cat also likes to fish, and the strong and powerful tiger cat has the ability to hunt large prey such as deer, small anteaters and westerly foxes.
Tiger cats are badly affected by the fur trade due to their beautiful fur, especially tiger cats and long-tailed tiger cats, which have unusually low reproductive rates. They have a long gestation period, multiple singles, and a female tiger cat can only give birth to about 5 pups in a lifetime, which causes both tiger cats to be even more sensitive to hunting than big cats such as tigers and leopards. There is no killing without buying and selling, love life deeply, please say no to the fur trade.
ocelot
About 7 million years ago, the mountain lion family originated in North America. This family includes today's mountain lions, cheetahs and slender-waisted cats, with cheetahs divergeing 4.9 million years ago, while mountain lions and slender-waisted cats parting ways 4.2 million years ago, all of which are relatively long ago. Therefore, the 3 members of the family are relatively different and are divided into 3 single genera.
The cheetah's claws cannot be fully retracted from its claw sheath, so the claws are blunt, unlike any cat. As a result, cheetahs have long been excluded from the cat subfamily and are considered the most peculiar cats. Until modern molecular genetics technology helped it find its family.
cheetah
The cheetah is the fastest land animal, sprinting to catch up with any kind of antelope, but it is delicate and not good at fighting, so it occupies a special ecological niche - chasing small and fast-running antelopes on the grassland, and the cheetah has few competitors in this ecological niche. As a result, prehistoric cheetahs were able to expand from North America to Asia and Africa, and now the cheetahs in their homeland in North America are extinct, and Africa and West Asia have become the last homes of cheetahs.
The mountain lion has a similar body structure to that of a cheetah, which is the most capable big cat after a cheetah. However, mountain lions are also as strong and powerful as leopards and can hunt 400 kg of adult red deer. Mountain lions are extremely adaptable to habitats, have a wide range of diets, and play an ecological role as leopards on the American continent.
The appearance of the slender-waisted cat is relatively different from all cats, its head is flattened, it has a blunt round outline of a "Roman nose" from the side, the body is thick and short, and it looks a bit like a ferret, so it is also called a otter cat or ferret cat. It lives in the forests of Latin America and is a neighbor of the genus Tiger Cat, but it is more adaptable than any of the tiger cats. Slender-waisted cats mainly feed on mice, and their prey is mostly under 0.5 kg.
Slender-waisted cat
The lynx family diverged almost simultaneously from the mountain lion family (7 million years ago) and included members of today's lynx genus, three species of lynx and short-tailed cats. About 3.2 million years ago, the short-tailed cat separated from three species of lynx, and the three species of lynx still had a common ancestor until 1.5 million years ago.
The lynx genus has distinct appearance characteristics. The head is rounded, the snout is shortened, and there are two fewer upper teeth than other cats (lynx 28 teeth, other cats 30). The ears are long, and the tufts of hairs at the tip of the ears are also long. Slender limbs and slender body. The tail is extremely short, like a rabbit's tail. The soles of the feet are large and long-haired, making them suitable for living in the snow in the north.
Eurasian lynx
Lynx are experts in preying on rabbits, with the Canadian lynx specializing in preying on snowshoe rabbits, while the Eurasian lynx, Iberian lynx and short-tailed cats still maintain a diverse diet while killing many ungulates, and Eurasian lynx are more fond of roe deer than hares.
The genus Lynx is a northerner inhabitant, and the short-tailed cat lives in the United States, with the most southern distribution. The Canadian lynx and eurasian lynx live in the coniferous forests of North America and Eurasia, respectively, and are the northernmost cats and the only cats near the Arctic Circle. The Iberian lynx is found only in the Iberian Peninsula, leaving only about 200 in the world, making it the most endangered cat in the world.
bobcat
Soon after the divergence of mountain lions and lynx, some of the North American cats moved back to Asia, which is the common ancestor of the ocelot and domestic cats. 6.2 million years ago, the ocelot family and the cat family diverged, and the eight major families of the real cat family have all appeared here.
There is a small cat family that is between the genus Ocelot and cat genus, and molecular genetic analysis shows that it is closer to the genus Ocelot, which diverged from the genus Ocelot 5.9 million years ago, and it is the "net red" rabbit. The rabbit represents an extreme of the evolution of the cat family, it is the fattest and most clumsy cat, on the plateau by camouflage, ambush hunting rodents such as pikas.
Rusty spotted cat
The four species of ocelots are all inhabited by dense forests in eastern Asia and are very hydrophilic, with ocelots and rusty cats feeding on mice and birds, while fishing cats and flat-headed cats eat a large number of aquatic animals, mainly fish and crabs.
The ocelot is the most widely distributed cat in eastern Asia, it is the only native cat family in the Philippines and Ryukyu, and it is also the most common small "wild cat" in eastern China. The rusty spotted cat is found in India and Sri Lanka, while the flat-headed cat is found only in the Malay Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago. Among them, the rusty spotted cat weighs only 0.9 kg, which is the smallest cat, while the flat-headed cat weighs 1.5-2.2 kg, the third-to-last smallest in the feline family.
The fishing cat is the only medium-sized cat in the genus ocelot, extremely fierce, it is the best swimmer cat, and it is also the strongest member of the entire cat subfamily, it is said that the zoo has killed leopards.
Fishing cats
At the same time as the genus Ocelot expanded in East Asia, the cat family occupied all of western Asia, Europe, and Africa. The two families have a division of labor, bounded by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau-Mongolian Plateau line, the ocelot genus pipes the east side, the cat genus pipes the west side, and the rabbit fox lives on these two plateaus. The genus Ocelot prefers moist forests, while the genus prefers arid grasslands and deserts.
The only one that crosses the border is the jungle cat, which is widely distributed, and is also found in southern China and Indochina. It is the largest member of the cat genus and the largest small cat, weighing up to 13 kilograms, and is close to some medium-sized cats. The smallest black-footed cat in the cat genus is the second smallest cat after the rusty cat.
Jungle cat
The genus is the closest relative of the owner of the domestic cat, including the African wildcat, the direct ancestor of the domestic cat. Wildcats, desert cats and domestic cats form a composite species that is recognized by the academic community. However, the division of species is controversial, with experts advocating the merging of the entire composite species into one species, while the master grouping experts recommend retaining the species status of the desert cat and splitting the feral cat into two species, the Olin cat and the non-sub-wildcat, while giving the domestic cat a separate species status.
Like domestic cats, cats are expert mouse catchers, whether they are jungle cats in river valleys, black-footed cats in south African grasslands, sand cats in the Middle East desert, desert cats in the Qinghai plateau, or wild cats in the vast distribution, rodents form the main part of their diet.
African wildcat
Cats are characterized by a striped pattern on the body, which is evident on the legs, and the spots on the side of the body are sometimes fused into stripes (Tanuki cats). This feature is an anomaly in the cat family, because the original cat of the cat family is the same spot as the ocelot, tiger cat and leopard, and its offspring are either spots or the solid color of the spots degenerated, and only tigers and cats have evolved stripes. Therefore, some cat owners look down on the fishbone pattern of tanuki cats, and like to pursue the spots of ocelots and serval cats, which is purely a manifestation of ignorance.