Leopard cat


The leopard cat is a small wild cat native to continental South, Southeast, and East Asia. Since 2002 it has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List as it is widely distributed although threatened by habitat loss and hunting in parts of its range.
Historically, the leopard cat of continental Asia was considered the same species as the Sunda leopard cat. As of 2017, the latter is recognised as a distinct species, with the taxonomic name Prionailurus javanensis.
Leopard cat subspecies differ widely in fur colour, tail length, skull shape and size of carnassials. Archaeological evidence indicates that the leopard cat was the first cat species domesticated in Neolithic China about 5,000 years ago in Shaanxi and Henan Provinces.

Characteristics

A leopard cat is about the size of a domestic cat, but more slender, with longer legs and well-defined webs between its toes. Its small head is marked with two prominent dark stripes and a short and narrow white muzzle. There are two dark stripes running from the eyes to the ears and smaller white streaks running from the eyes to the nose. The backs of its moderately long and rounded ears are black with central white spots. Body and limbs are marked with black spots of varying size and colour, and along its back are two to four rows of elongated spots. The tail is about half the size of its head-body length and is spotted with a few indistinct rings near the black tip. The background colour of the spotted fur is tawny, with a white chest and belly. However, in their huge range, they vary so much in colouration and size of spots as well as in body size and weight that initially they were thought to be several different species. The fur colour is yellowish brown in the southern populations, but pale silver-grey in the northern ones. The black markings may be spotted, rosetted, or may even form dotted streaks, depending on subspecies. In the tropics, leopard cats weigh, have head-body lengths of, with long tails. In northern China and Siberia, they weigh up to, and have head-body lengths of up to ; generally, they put on weight before winter and become thinner until spring. Shoulder height is about.

Taxonomy

Felis bengalensis was the scientific name proposed by Robert Kerr in 1792 for a leopard cat from Bengal. In the subsequent decades, 20 more leopard cat specimens were described and named, including:
  • Felis nipalensis from Nepal
  • Felis chinensis from Canton Province, China
  • Leopardus ellioti from the area of Bombay Presidency
  • Felis horsfieldi from Bhutan
  • Felis wagati and Felis tenasserimensis from Tenasserim
  • Felis euptilura based on two skins from Siberia. One was depicted in Gustav Radde's illustration cum description of a wild cat; the other was part of a collection at the Regent's Park Zoo. The ground colour of both was light brownish-yellow, strongly mixed with grey and covered with reddish-brown spots, head grey with a dark-red stripe across the cheek. The initial binomial euptilura given by Elliott has been incorrectly changed to "euptilurus" by some later authors, but under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature Article 31.2.1, nouns and noun phrases are not subject to gender agreement; at present, both terms appear in use, but only the spelling "euptilura" is correct.
  • Felis microtis from the Peking area; and also from Tsushima Island.
  • Felis manchurica from the vicinity of Mukden in Manchuria was a light grey spotted skin.
In 1939, Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated them to the genus Prionailurus. The collection of the Natural History Museum, London comprised several skulls and large numbers of skins of leopard cats from various regions. Based on this broad variety of skins, he proposed to differentiate between a southern subspecies P. bengalensis bengalensis from warmer latitudes to the west and east of the Bay of Bengal, and a northern P. bengalensis horsfieldi from the Himalayas, having a fuller winter coat than the southern. His description of leopard cats from the areas of Gilgit and Karachi under the trinomen Prionailurus bengalensis trevelyani is based on seven skins that had longer, paler and more greyish fur than those from the Himalayas. He assumed that trevelyani inhabits more rocky, less forested habitats than bengalensis and horsfieldi.
Two more subspecies were proposed and described:
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Russian zoologists Geptner, Gromov and Baranova disagreed with this classification. They emphasized the differences of skins and skulls at their disposal and the ones originating in Southeast Asia, and coined the term Amur forest cat, which they regarded as a distinct species. In 1987, Chinese zoologists pointed out the affinity of leopard cats from northern China, Amur cats and leopard cats from southern latitudes. In view of the morphological similarities they did not support classifying the Amur cat as a species.
Molecular analysis of 39 leopard cat tissue samples clearly showed three clades: a northern lineage and southern lineages 1 and 2. The northern lineage comprises leopard cats from Tsushima Island, the Korean Peninsula, the continental Far East, Taiwan, and Iriomote Island. Southern lineage 1, comprising Southeast Asian populations, showed higher genetic diversity. Southern lineage 2 is genetically distant from the other lineages.
Following a revision of Felidae taxonomy in 2017, two leopard cat species are recognised, based on molecular analyses, morphological differences, and biogeographic separation:
  • the mainland leopard cat is widely distributed on mainland Asia, from Pakistan to Southeast Asia, China, and the Russian Far East.
  • the Sunda leopard cat is native to Java, Bali, Borneo, Sumatra, Palawan, Negros, Cebu, Panay, and possibly the Malay Peninsula.
Two mainland leopard cat subspecies are also recognised:
  • P. b. bengalensis ranges in South and East Asia, from Pakistan to China, and probably the Malay Peninsula; and
  • P. b. euptilura is native to the Russian Far East, Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, Iriomote and Tsushima Islands.

    Phylogeny

analysis of the nuclear DNA in tissue samples from all Felidae species revealed that the evolutionary radiation of the Felidae began in Asia in the Miocene around. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA of all Felidae species indicates a radiation at around.
The Prionailurus species are estimated to have had a common ancestor between, and.
Both models agree in the rusty-spotted cat having been the first cat of this evolutionary lineage that genetically diverged, followed by the flat-headed cat and then the fishing cat. It is estimated to have diverged together with the leopard cat between and.
The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic relationships of the leopard cat as derived through analysis of nuclear DNA:

Distribution and habitat

The leopard cat is the most widely distributed Asian small wild cat. Its range extends from eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to the Russian Far East. It lives in tropical evergreen rainforests and plantations at sea level, in subtropical deciduous and coniferous forests in the foothills of the Himalayas at elevations above. It is able to tolerate human-modified landscapes with vegetation cover to some degree, and inhabits agriculturally used areas such as oil palm and sugar cane plantations.
In Afghanistan, it was reported in the 1970s from Jalalkot and Norgul in the Kunar Valley, and the Waygul forest of Dara-I-Pech District. It is rare in Pakistan's arid treeless areas.
In 2009, a leopard cat was recorded by a camera trap in Nepal's Makalu-Barun National Park at an elevation of. At least six individuals inhabit the survey area, which is dominated by associations of rhododendron, oak and maple. The highest elevation record was obtained in September 2012 at in the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area.
In Thailand's Phu Khiao Wildlife Sanctuary, 20 leopard cats were radio-collared between 1999 and 2003. Home ranges of males ranged from to, and of the six females from to.
In China, it was recorded in the Changqing National Nature Reserve in the Qinling Mountains, in the Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve in the Min Mountains, in Wolong Nature Reserve and other protected areas in the Qionglai Mountains and Daliang Mountains between 2002 and 2008.
In far eastern Russia, it lives close to rivers, valleys and in ravine forests, but avoids areas with more than of snowfall.
In the Japanese archipelago, the leopard cat is currently restricted to the islands of Iriomote and Tsushima. Fossils excavated dating to the Pleistocene period suggest a broader distribution in the past.

Ecology and behaviour

Leopard cats are solitary, except during the breeding season. Some are active during the day, but most hunt at night, preferring to stalk murids, tree shrews and hares. They are agile climbers and quite arboreal in their habits. They rest in trees, but also hide in dense thorny undergrowth on the ground. There, leopard cats feed on a large proportion of rats compared to forested areas.
Leopard cats can swim, but seldom do so. They produce a similar range of vocalisations to the domestic cat. Both sexes scent mark their territory by spraying urine, leaving faeces in exposed locations, head rubbing, and scratching.

Diet

Leopard cats are carnivorous, feeding on a variety of small prey including mammals, lizards, amphibians, birds and insects. In most parts of their range, small rodents such as rats and mice form the major part of their diet, which is often supplemented with grass, eggs, poultry, and aquatic prey. They are active hunters, dispatching their prey with a rapid pounce and bite. Unlike many other small cats, they do not "play" with their food, maintaining a tight grip with their claws until the animal is dead. This may be related to the relatively high proportion of birds in their diet, which are more likely to escape when released than are rodents.