Hainan Leopard Cat – A Unique Subspecies: The ‘Small Body’ Cat That’s a ‘Big Winner’
As for humans, cats are a kind of spiritual nourishment. When a cute leopard cat stretches its round eyes open almost without exception, 'cat owners' will be unable to resist its cuteness.
Although the leopard cat is cute, don't have the idea of raising it – with its small body, it possesses sharp teeth and claws as defensive weapons, and it has always been a wild beast in the forest. Especially on Hainan Island, where ‘there are no tigers in the mountains’, the leopard cat’s meat-eating attributes are fully displayed, and it quickly becomes a leading role in the food chain.
Leopard cats in Haikou City suburbs at night. Haotian Wetlands Research Institute provided the picture.
Text by: Hainan Daily reporter Li Mengyao
Humans’ ancestors have domesticated many wild animals, and the domestic cat is one of them. However, not all cat species can be domesticated, such as lions, tigers and leopards – these large ferocious beasts, even the relatively small leopard cats, have not been able to be domesticated.
Hainan leopard cats, due to their smaller size compared to populations on the mainland, are listed as a Hainan endemic subspecies.
The leopard cat’s survival adaptation range is extremely broad, deep forests are its favorite, and suburban and rural areas also have its agile figures. Scientists at the natural science institutes often ‘snapped’ their traces in the suburbs of Haikou.
The ‘life winner’ of the cat family.
Lions, tigers and leopards – ‘big cats’ dominate the mountains and fields, domestic cats make humans bow their heads and submit, as one of the strongest carnivorous animals on land, the cat family is a synonym for ‘cat slaves’.
And the leopard cat, which combines the strength of ‘big cats’ with the cuteness of a small cat, although it sounds a bit unfamiliar today, it was once mixed with humans and nature, and it was once a popular figure.
A few years ago, archaeologists analyzed the geometric morphology of jawbones and limb bones unearthed from human inhabited sites such as Henan Down Wanggang and Shaanxi Quanhu Village, dating back about 5500 years, and the ‘meow’ bones belonged to leopard cats.
It is believed that the human settlements stored abundant food, which attracted rodents to invade, and the little thief that troubled humans happened to be a meal for the leopard cats, so they quickly came to an agreement and started a ‘cooperation’ relationship.
However, the leopard cat has never been fully domesticated by humans. ‘There are bears and there are tortoiseshells, there are cats and tigers.’ ‘Han Yu Jing’ mentions cats and ferocious beasts, showing its wild nature. In the Eastern Han Dynasty or the Tang Dynasty, more docile and easier-to-tame modern domestic cats entered China, and the brief period of mutual benefit and exchange between humans and leopard cats came to an end.
Returning to the forest and starting to hunt independently is not difficult for leopard cats.
This Asian cat – leopard cat is a nocturnal animal, it is good at climbing trees, and can also swim, it also has a tool-like, scissor-shaped sharp teeth, which can bite through thick cowhide or tear through resilient beast meat.
Based on these excellent survival skills, the ‘territory’ of the leopard cat spans throughout East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, almost the most widely distributed species of cats.
Leopard cats photographed in Haikou Pinggong Ridge.
Hainan leopard cats appear in urban suburbs.
From the freezing west Siberia to the south, the leopard cat’s color evolves more and more vibrant with the rise of temperature, and its body shape becomes smaller and more slender. And when one branch of the leopard cat migrated to Hainan, the sudden earthquake caused the break of gene communication with other populations on the mainland, and the influence of island climate and local environment also led to the evolution of a unique Hainan leopard cat population.
In 1988, staff of the Haikou Pinggong Ridge National Nature Reserve collected a leopard cat specimen at a lake on an altitude of 800 meters. From the picture, the leopard cat's back is light brown, and its spots are small, and its body shape is much smaller than that of leopard cats in northern areas.
This is consistent with the characteristics of other endemic subspecies in Hainan – smaller size, darker color. But according to the latest classification method, the leopard cat population in Hainan is not very different from the populations in the north of Beijing and until the Malay Peninsula, so it is now included in the name subspecies together with the northern subspecies, meaning that there are only 2 subspecies of leopard cats in China.
According to the introduction in ‘Hainan Terrestrial Vertebrates Retrieval’ edited by Professor Shi Hai Tao of Hainan Normal University, leopard cats are distributed in cities and counties of Hainan such as, ,,,, and , , , Five Finger Mountain, and their activity range is very wide. This is due to the fact that there are no tigers, leopards,, wolves and other large carnivorous animals in Hainan, and with excellent natural conditions and food supply all year round, the ‘small body’ leopard cat can thrive and multiply quickly.
“Besides mountain forests, leopard cats can also appear in urban suburbs or villages.” According to the introduction by Mr. Lu Gang, an expert from the Haikou Tianwen Wetlands Research Institute, he and his colleagues often found suspected leopard cat droppings when they conducted ecological surveys in Haikou in recent years.
To verify the identity of these droppings, Mr. Lu installed several infrared cameras in the area, and the camera successfully captured the traces of the leopard cat several times. On the night of December 8, 1988, a leopard cat jumped into a community’s abandoned field in Haikou’s suburbs, and its traces were once again fixed by the camera.
From its short ‘cooperation’ with humans thousands of years ago to its frequent appearance in urban suburbs today, the leopard cat has never left Hainan, which makes people happy, and it deserves our cherishing.
Original Title: Hainan Endemic Subspecies Leopard Cat – ‘Small Body’ Cat, Big Winner’
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