Little-known cat lures prey by crying like a baby monkey

“The behavior was first witnessed back in 2005 when Wildlife Conservation Society researchers were following a group of pied tamarins — tiny monkeys the size of squirrels — through the Amazon rain forest. While the monkeys were feeding, both the tamarins and the researchers suddenly became alerted to what sounded like baby tamarin distress calls.

That’s when surprised researchers saw what was hidden from the adult tamarins: a hungry margay lurking in the branches. The cat was actually mimicking the language of baby tamarins to lure the adults in closer.”

(Source: zeptarthestarman)

Female and Male Lions

Hey Everyone - sorry I have not been updating ZOLANIMALS for awhile but I have been very busy. After returning stateside, I starting working 6 days a week as a veterinary assistant/technician at a small animal hospital in Baltimore as a way to gain more experience working with animals in a medical aspect. This job has given me the opportunity to work hands on with veterinarians as I help them run blood-work in the lab, assist in all surgeries, and even perform dental and other routine veterinary procedures on my own. I am hoping to use this experience as a stepping stone to gaining similar responsibilities with a zoo position in the near future.

I took this photo after performing a dental exam and cleaning on this cat.

Swamp Cat

Pallas’s Cat

Lynx

by Rafael G. Riancho (Lunada) / Rafa Riancho

Cheetah Cub by Christy Browning

Pallas’s Cat (Otocolobus manul or Felis manul), also called Manul, is a small wild cat named after German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas, who first described the species in 1776. Pallas’s cats are thought to be crepuscular hunters and to feed on small rodents, pikas and birds. They hunt primarily by ambush or stalking, using low vegetation and rocky terrain for cover; they are not fast runners. They spend the day sheltering in crevices or abandoned burrows of other animals, although they have also been observed basking in warm sunshine. (Wiki.)

The caracal (Caracal caracal) is a fiercely territorial medium-sized cat ranging over Western Asia, South Asia and Africa. The word caracal comes from the Turkish word “karakulak”, meaning “black ear”. Caracals are rarely seen in the wild despite their relative abundance, as they hide extremely well. It is best known for its spectacular skill at hunting birds, able to snatch a bird in flight, sometimes more than one at a time. It can jump and climb exceptionally well, which enables it to catch hyraxes better than probably any other carnivore. (Wiki.)

Sand Cat

A black panther is typically a melanistic colour variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars (Panthera onca), in Asia and Africa they are black leopards (Panthera pardus), and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars (Puma concolor – although this has not been proven to have a black variant), or smaller cats. In jaguars, the melanism allele is dominant. Consequently, black jaguars may produce either black or spotted cubs, but a pair of spotted jaguars can only produce spotted cubs. The gene is incompletely dominant: individuals with two copies of the allele are darker (the black background colour is more dense) than individuals with just one copy, whose background colour may appear to be dark charcoal rather than black.