African Wild Cat

[TStone]

Mr Stone, have you come across the kolkat/gekolde kat (black footed cat) in your area?

Ps: We know them as miershooptier.

Miershooptier :) I grew up knowing them by that name. We do have them in this area, I have seen a few, mostly at night, but they are not common and I have never managed to photograph them.

They are surprisingly aggressive for such a small animal, I once spotted a female crossing a road with a kitten in her mouth. She got a fright and ran off dropping the youngster, I went closer to have a look and met the "tier" part of the miershooptier. Mother and kitten left together, leaving me glad that it was not leopard sized.

[Messor]

Miershooptier :) I grew up knowing them by that name. We do have them in this area, I have seen a few, mostly at night, but they are not common and I have never managed to photograph them.

They are surprisingly aggressive for such a small animal, I once spotted a female crossing a road with a kitten in her mouth. She got a fright and ran off dropping the youngster, I went closer to have a look and met the "tier" part of the miershooptier. Mother and kitten left together, leaving me glad that it was not leopard sized.

People always focus on the bigger things in general, unfortunately.

Groukat are plentiful, but precious few people have seen a miershooptier, personally I find them the most beautiful of them all.
Photo's doesn't do them justice, those eyes are BIG, they must have excellent night vision.

They remind me of jack russels, small in size but the attitude to match something much larger.

[treeman]

Mesor - question was not directed at me, but !
In about 1995 I was on a back of a bakkie with those kinda persons looking for things to shoot, early days where just having place to shoot was hard to find. We sot mostly rabbit (guise of for farm workers) and anything that possibly could be guilty of any farm crime. (shame full days only lasted about a year).
We often on this one hill spotted eyes that moved funny up down manner, not like other eyes, but only on that hill two pairs of eyes always same place far far away. One night farmers son said 'ek wil sien wat daai is" - he lay up and aimed for ages and pulled a shot off. He hit it and we went to look what the eyes were - i was devasted when i saw what we had done - a Black Footed cat ( I grew up in a look at nature family, books and Nat Geo were my upbringing). It was the only ones I ever saw. The area - believe it or not -Paterson Eastern Cape. It was the more spotted variant.
Also known as SantVlakte

Mr Stone, have you come across the kolkat/gekolde kat (black footed cat) in your area?

Ps: We know them as miershooptier.

[TStone]

People always focus on the bigger things in general, unfortunately.

True, unfortunately. The tiny ones can be really interesting, and entertaining, klaasneus (elephent shrew, I had to look up the translation :)) would be a good example.

[gertjie87]

Black foots are amazing smalest feline in the world as well as the most aggressive i have a friend that breeds them really beautifull kitties. Really difficult to breed in captivity because of their aggression they do not adapt well. I have seen a couple of african wild cats as well as hybrids the hybrids resemble the wild ones very closely. It would seem the wild cat patterning is genetically dominant over domesticated patterns.
Serval/domesticated hybrids are known as savannah cats and invredibly popular in the international pet trade. Cross breeding a wild cat and a domesticated has no legal ramifications as long as the original wild cat was permitted there are no restrictions on keeping hybrids.

[treeman]

as matter of interest does the wild gene not always become dominant, I read some where that when wild pigs went feral it was quick process that the offspring lost all domestic traits and appearances. Wonder if its the same with cats. I know birds bred for a trait also breed the trait out in a few generations.

Black foots are amazing smalest feline in the world as well as the most aggressive i have a friend that breeds them really beautifull kitties. Really difficult to breed in captivity because of their aggression they do not adapt well. I have seen a couple of african wild cats as well as hybrids the hybrids resemble the wild ones very closely. It would seem the wild cat patterning is genetically dominant over domesticated patterns.
Serval/domesticated hybrids are known as savannah cats and invredibly popular in the international pet trade. Cross breeding a wild cat and a domesticated has no legal ramifications as long as the original wild cat was permitted there are no restrictions on keeping hybrids.

[gertjie87]

Its actually quite a long story as there are quite a bit more to patterning then just the patterning gene. The patterning is ditectly related to what is called the "tame gene" what we know as domestication. For every colour variation gene there are a couple of different colour variants that can become dominant in different configurations. At the end of it all the most dominant gene is the wild gene. However if a wild and a domestic hybrid were to breed back to domestic chances are 50/50 for wild patterning or domestic

[fkritzinger]

interesting, in the current (jan 2017) issue of SA Jagter they have an article "hunting the secret 7" specifically about hunting the smaller cats. the article features a photo of a mounter African Wild Cat hybrid...

[Skaaphaas]

Ek het ook al 'n paar katte geskiet in my lewe. Veral as student.

[treeman]

I have three regrets so far in shooting career - this cat (which I did not shoot self) and two birds i shot as a kid with pellet gun. A sun bird and a Oriol

Ek het ook al 'n paar katte geskiet in my lewe. Veral as student.