Wildlife
Cats are more purely carnivorous than any other meat-eating family and they like their meat fresh, relying on prey they have caught and killed themselves. Cats usually live solitary lives, with one famous exception: the lion, the only truly social cat. For stealth, and to protect against wear, cats retract their claws, although the cheetah's remain visible. With over 40 species, from the familar domestic to the mighty tiger, cats are found everywhere except Australia and Antarctica. Explore the familiar and the lesser known below, including the Asian golden and leopard cats, as well as the extinct sabre-toothed tiger.
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Big cat attack
A heavily armoured glyptodont was killed by a big cat - but which one?
A heavily armoured glyptodont was killed by a big cat - but which one?
Lynx to sand cat
The basic cat design has adapted to suit different conditions.
The basic cat design has adapted to suit different conditions.
Evolutionary arms race
Competition for survival brought about some of Earth's deadliest animals, the big cats.
Competition for survival brought about some of Earth's deadliest animals, the big cats.
The shading illustrates the diversity of this group - the darker the colour the greater the number of species. Data provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
Cheetah (species)
Asian golden cat (species)
Wildcat (species)
Serval (species)
Eurasian lynx (species)
Clouded leopard (species)
Roaring cats
Leopard cat (species)
Puma (species)
Snow leopard (species)Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Discover the other animals and plants that lived during the following geological time periods.
Felidae is the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called a felid. Felids are the strictest carnivores of the thirteen terrestrial families in the order Carnivora, although the three families of marine mammals comprising the superfamily pinnipedia are as carnivorous as the felids. The most familiar felid is the domestic cat, which first became associated with humans about 10,000 years ago, but the family includes all other wild cats including the big cats.
Extant felids belong to one of two subfamilies: Pantherinae (which includes the tiger, the lion, the jaguar, and the leopard), and Felinae (which includes the cougar, the cheetah, the lynxes, the ocelot, and the domestic cat).
The first felids emerged during the Oligocene, about 25 million years ago. In prehistoric times, there was a third subfamily known as Machairodontinae, which included the "saber-toothed cats" such as the well known Smilodon. There were also other superficially cat-like mammals, such as the marsupial sabertooth Thylacosmilus or the Nimravidae, which are not included in Felidae despite superficial similarities.
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Sabre-toothed tigers
Carnivorous
Predator
Adapted to running
Chemical communication
Viviparous
Oligocene epoch
Miocene epoch
Pliocene epoch
Pleistocene epoch
Holocene epoch