Africa's smallest wild cat can kill 14 animals in a single night
The black-footed cat weighs barely two kilograms and stands under 25 centimetres at the shoulder, yet it is a formidable night hunter. Radio-tracked individuals roam up to 16 kilometres after dark, leap 1.4 metres to snatch birds in flight, and may catch as many as 14 small animals in one night.
Despite the name, the dark colouring is limited to the undersides of its paws. The rest is tawny fur scattered with bold spots that stretch into stripes on the neck, back and shoulders, with dark streaks running from the eyes across the cheeks and a black-tipped tail. The pattern hides it well, particularly on moonlit nights. Females weigh 1.1 to 1.65 kilograms and males 1.6 to 2.45. Its ear canals are larger than in most Felis species, and the African wildcat, a close relative, is almost three times its size.
Science first met the species in the northern Karoo of South Africa. The explorer William John Burchell named it Felis nigripes in 1824 from skins collected near Litákun, now Dithakong. A darker subspecies proposed in 1931 has since been doubted, and in 2017 the IUCN Cat Specialist Group judged it most likely a single, undivided species. Genetic studies place it as the second branch to split from the rest of the Felis lineage, after the jungle cat; no fossils are known, and it may have reached Africa during the Pleistocene when low seas linked it to Asia.
Radio telemetry since 1993 has revealed its habits. It spends daylight in burrows and hunts at night, averaging 5 to 16 kilometres in search of small rodents and birds, and eats some 40 different vertebrates, sometimes tackling prey heavier than itself. Females usually bear two kittens between October and March, the southern summer; they are weaned at two months and independent within four.
Its range is small, confined to the dry steppes and grassy savannas of Southern Africa, chiefly South Africa and southern Botswana, with scattered records from Namibia, southern Angola and southern Zimbabwe. Since 2002 the IUCN has rated it Vulnerable. Numbers are thought to be falling because of bushmeat hunting of its prey, persecution, road deaths and attacks by herding dogs.
Source: Black-footed cat
