There are a lot more breeds of cats these days? I mean whoever heard of the Munchkin (except after watching the Wizard of Oz), or the Ragdoll, which came into existence in the late 1960s. Now there’s the Cheetoh Cat, LaPerm, Highlander. I haven’t heard of any of these yet. But we will catch up with these breeds here at this site at some point.
I’ll bet there are wild cats you’ve never heard of either and most of them have been around for eons. Are you familiar with the black-footed cat? He originates from South Africa and is, they say, the most deadly of all wild cats. The smallest wild cat in Africa, he looks like a cute little house cat, but doesn’t get as big as some of our cats as most are under five pounds. They don’t climb well and hole up for safety and privacy mainly in caves and burrows. You probably wouldn’t want this pretty cat in your house as he has the reputation for being extremely ferocious.
If you’ve been following this blog for a long time, you may have heard of Pallas’s cat or the
Pallas Cat (depending on your source). These unusual cats live mainly in the steppe region of Central Asia, thus their design, with ears on the sides of their head and eyes high on their foreheads. I had the thrill of entering a cage at the Denver Zoo with a pair of Pallas cats years ago to photograph them for an article I wrote for Cats Magazine. At that time my research indicated that these cats, although they look cuddly and soft, cannot be tamed. It’s possible that someone has managed to tame one by now.
The Rusty Spotted Cat is the smallest wild cat in the world at only two to three pounds. These cats live in India and Sri Lanka and they also hang out in caves. Unlike the Black-Footed Cat, they’re excellent climbers, so they climb trees as well.
One of the things about cats is that a cat is no longer a cat. I mean the variety of domestic cats is mind boggling and so, it seems is the variety of wild cats.
