African Wildcat

About the African Wildcat

The African wildcat (Felis lybica) is a small wildcat species with sandy grey fur, pale vertical stripes on the sides and around the face. It is native to Africa, West and Central Asia, and is distributed to Rajasthan in India and Xinjiang in China. It inhabits a broad variety of landscapes ranging from deserts to savannas, shrublands and grasslands.

The African wildcat is the ancestor of the domestic cat (F. catus). Some African wildcats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the Near East. Interspecific hybrids between both species are common where their ranges overlap.

Felis lybica was the scientific name proposed in 1780 by Georg Forster who based his description on a specimen from Gafsa on the Barbary Coast that had the size of a domestic cat, but a reddish fur, short black tufts on the ears, and a ringed tail.

Between the late 18th and 20th centuries, several naturalists and curators of natural history museums described and proposed new names for wildcat holotypes from Africa and the Near East, including: Felis ocreata by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1791 was based on a description of a wildcat encountered in northern Ethiopia by James Bruce.

Felis cafra by... Wikipedia →