A look at the little known, beautiful and elusive South American small cat, the Pampas Cat (Leopardus colocola). Particularly a discussion on taxonomy and evidence for evolution and speciation in action.
Category Archives: cats
Cats in Culture
A look at the cultural importance of cats to humans down through the millennia, examining what, exactly, the portrayal of cats says about us rather than vice versa. Released for International Cat Day 2021.
Caturday Special: The Giant Cheetah, Acinonyx pardinensis
A look at the Giant Cheetah, Acinonyx pardinensis – it’s basically a cheetah but bigger (and possibly slower) but it allows us to learn about the role of adaptation as an evolutionary mechanism.
Caturday Special: The Ocelot, Leopardus pardalis
A look at one of the most beautiful coated cats in the world, the ocelot. Small, but not too small, these medium sized cats range from the USA to Argentina, making their living mostly eating small prey and hiding from just about anything else. An adorable cat that was once overhunted for its pelt or to be sold into the pet trade. These things are so damn cute.
Caturday Special: The Sand Cat, Felis margarita
The sandcat, one of the cutest and most amazing cats on the planet. This small, adorable bundle of fluff has been known to eat desert monitor lizards its own size and venomous snakes – although mostly it eats small rodents, lizards, birds and insects. They rarely drink, using their efficient kidneys to obtain moisture from their prey. They’re just unbelievable, something this cute should not be so tough but they are hard as nails and can teach us a lot about how we should adapt to our environment rather than unsustainably developing techniques and technologies that force our environment to adapt to us.
Be more sandcat.
Caturday Special: The Leopard, Panthera pardus
With this study of the leopard we have written about every extant pantherine. There are no more big cat species of that genus left to cover. The leopard is a beautiful, generalist, opportunist species adapted for a wide variety of habitats, explaining it’s wide distribution. It is a cat also associated with the Greek God Dionysus, the God of wine.
Caturday Special: The Rusty-Spotted Cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus)
A look at potentially the world’s smallest cat, the rusty-spotted cat of India and Sri Lanka. A tiny small rodent and bird hunter that is shy, elusive and very, very cute.
Caturday Special: Homotherium
A look at the lesser-explored but no less impressive sabre toothed cat genus Homotherium – with a wealth of evidence for a brutal, chasing hunting style, potentially pack hunting, almost certainly a social cat, Homotherium perhaps deserves a lot more care, attention and understanding than its more widely known cousin the Smilodon.
Also they butchered stuff…Awesome!
Caturday Special: The Eurasian Cave Lion, Panthera spelaea
A discussion about the European or Eurasian Cave Lion and the interwoven nature of the relationship between lions and humans since prehistory.
Caturday Special: The Marbled Cat (Pardofelis marmorata)
A look at one of the world’s most elusive but beautiful cats, Asia’s marbled cat. A small cat that lives and hunts in the trees (arboreal) and has exceptionally long canine teeth for reasons we will discuss.