Our planet is inhabited by 37 species of representatives of the Feline family. Most of them are large animals, predators. Lions and tigers, panthers and cougars, leopards and cheetahs are considered the largest wild cats in the world. Representatives of this large family have distinctive features in behavior, color, habitat, etc.
In nature, there are animals that amaze with their incredible size. In this article, we will talk about some of them, and you will also learn the name of the largest wild cat in the world.
Cheetah
An animal that combines the features and characteristics of both cats and dogs. Long and slender legs, like dogs, a short body and the ability, like cats, to climb trees. This is not the largest cat in the world. Her height does not exceed 90 cm with a weight of 65 kilograms. The body is slender with well-developed muscles and almost no body fat, it may even seem fragile.
The head of a cheetah is small, with high-set eyes and small rounded ears. The short coat of a cheetah is sand-colored with black spots.
Most of the population of these predators is in Africa: Angola, Algeria, Botswana, Benin, Congo, etc. There are not very many cheetahs left in Asia: according to unconfirmed reports, habitats have been preserved only in the central part of Iran.
Animals prefer flat and large spaces, because the hunting style of these wild cats is quite unusual: they are able to imperceptibly approach prey at a distance of less than 10 meters, and then make a swift dash, while developing tremendous speed. However, they can not pursue their prey in this way for long - only 400 meters. If she managed to escape during this time, the cheetah rests and waits for a new victim.
Puma
This is one of the largest wild cats in the world and the second largest in America. The height at the withers is about 70 cm with a body length of 180 cm. The average weight of a predator is 100 kg. The body is elongated, rather massive, the hind legs are longer than the front ones, the head is small, proportional to the body. Color - gray or reddish.
The cougar lives mainly in South America or in the west of North America, as well as in the Yucatan. The animal settles in almost any area - from the plains to the mountains. This cat is not too fastidious in food, can eat ungulates, and does not disdain insects. Cases of attacks on people, as a rule, have been recorded.they were short people walking alone, or children.
Leopard
Of the largest wild cats in the world, the leopard is considered the most insidious predator. Despite the fact that its size is smaller than that of a tiger or a lion, it is in no way inferior to them in terms of jaw power. Height at the withers does not exceed 80 cm, and weight - 100 kg. The length of the body can be more than 195 cm. The leopard is distributed in the savannas, mountainous regions of Africa and in the southern half of East Asia.
The Predator has its own characteristics:
- beautifully climbs trees;
- easily overcomes water obstacles;
- can eat fish;
- sits in ambush for a very long time;
- go hunting alone at night;
- to protect his prey, he drags them up a tree.
Leopards are considered more aggressive, in which the color is dominated by black, which animals get due to the high content of the hormone melatonin.
Lion
This mighty animal is one of the biggest wild cats in the world. A lion, whose weight reaches and sometimes exceeds 250 kg, with a height at the withers of 123 cm and a body length of up to 250 cm, is a formidable and dangerous predator. The color of the thick coat with a dense undercoat varies from sandy to dark brown. The characteristic features of the lion are a luxurious mane, which only males have, and a tassel at the tip of the tail. These predators live mainly in Africa, small populations have survived in India.
About going huntingthe lion notifies the district with a formidable roar, which is heard several kilometers from the location of the animal. These are the only representatives of the family living in prides (large families), led by the leader of the pack, a young and strong lion. During the hunt, the males are in ambush, and the females drive the prey.
Tigers
These beautiful animals are considered to be the largest wild cats in the world. The size and weight of these giants is impressive. Often the weight of a tiger exceeds 250 kg, and the height of the animal at the withers is 1.2 meters. The body length of an adult male often exceeds three meters.
Predators have a strong and muscular body, a large round head with a convex skull, a beautiful and bright color - rich red with black stripes. These animals are now preserved on the territory of 16 countries - Bhutan and Bangladesh, India and Vietnam, Iran and Indonesia, China and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand and Russia. It is believed that there is a small population in the DPRK, but this information has not been officially confirmed.
Tigers live in humid tropical forests, bamboo thickets in the tropics, mangrove swamps and dry savannahs, semi-deserts, bare rocky hills and in the north in the taiga. Their feeding territory extends in different areas for 300-500 km. The predator hunts in the evening and in the morning. Attacks from an ambush, sniffing out the trail of his prey.
Tigers are amazingly clean. Before each hunt, the predator must bathe to beat off the smell, which can frighten away the future victim. A person can becomeeasy prey for this cat. But it attacks only when people violate the boundaries of its territory or the food base of the predator dries up. Nowadays, cases of tiger attacks on people are extremely rare. This is due to a decrease in the population of almost all species of this animal. All subspecies of tigers are steadily declining in numbers and are included in the Red Book.
Ligers and Tiglons
And finally, the largest wild cat in the world (you can see the photo below) is a hybrid of a female tiger and a male lion. Ligers grow rapidly, gaining up to 500 grams per day. The offspring from a lioness (mother) and a tiger (father) are called tiglons. Such animals are as rare as ligers, but smaller in size.
Ligers usually grow larger than their parents, and tiglons are close in size to tigers. Ligers, like tigers, love to swim, but are more sociable, which is typical for lions. They can only live in captivity. It is quite natural that this hybrid cannot be born in nature, since tigers and lions do not have a common habitat, they do not intersect in the wild.
Liger is the largest wild cat in the world. More recently, there was an erroneous opinion that it grows throughout life due to hormonal characteristics. But then it was found that after reaching the age of six, this animal stops growing, like tigers and lions.
Standing on its hind legs, the liger reaches a height of four meters. The females of these cats weigh 320 kg, and their body length is three meters. Quite often they retain the ability tobreeding, while males are sterile. This is one of the problems of reproduction of such hybrid offspring.
Cubs that were born from a liger mother are called liligers. There is data on the maximum weight of such an animal at 540 kg, and in the USA, in the state of Wisconsin - 725 kg. The Guinness Book of Records in 1973 was replenished with information about the largest league at that time. The weight of this hybrid cat was 798 kilograms. The animal lived in South Africa, in one of the zoological centers.
Hercules
Today, the largest wild cat in the world, Hercules, lives in Miami Park. The animal is 16 years old. He was born in 2002 from the union of a lion and a tigress. He took a worthy place in the Guinness Book of Records due to his weight of 408 kilograms. The height of the animal is 183 centimeters, and the diameter of the muzzle is 73 centimeters. Hercules is a unique liger, because he was born only because his parents were kept in the same enclosure.
Scientists believe that the artificial breeding of these animals is associated only with geographical features. In the distant past, when the habitats of tigers and lions coincided, ligers were not something special in the wild, and these giants regularly updated their population. And today there is no possibility of mating of the largest wild cats in natural conditions.
Reasons for huge growth
The genetic material of the lion-father transmits the ability to grow cubs, and the genes of the female tigress do not interfere with growthoffspring. As a result, the size of the ligren actually remains out of control, and the cub is actively growing.
Interesting facts about ligers
- The claws of these animals reach 5 cm in length.
- Ligrates have both spots and stripes in color.
- Today, no more than 20 ligers live on our planet, kept in zoos around the world.
- In Russia, the first ligren was born in Novosibirsk Zoo in 2012.
