Pallas's cat facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Pallas's cat |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| A Pallas's cat at Rotterdam Zoo | |
| Conservation status | |
Scientific classification  |
|
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Subfamily: | Felinae |
| Genus: | Otocolobus Brandt, 1841 |
| Species: |
O. manul
|
| Binomial name | |
| Otocolobus manul (Pallas, 1776)
|
|
| Subspecies | |
|
|
 |
|
| Distribution of Pallas's cat | |
| Script error: The function "autoWithCaption" does not exist. | |
Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".
The Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul), also known as the manul, is a small wild cat. It has thick, light grey fur and round ears. These ears are set low on its head. This cat is about the size of a domestic cat. Its body is 46 to 65 centimeters long. Its bushy tail adds another 21 to 31 centimeters. The Pallas's cat is very good at hiding. It lives in cold places with little rain. These areas have big temperature changes.
Peter Simon Pallas first described this cat in 1776. He saw it near Lake Baikal. Since then, it has been found across a large part of Central Asia. This includes mountains like the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. It lives in rocky grasslands and shrublands. It prefers places where snow is not too deep. The cat finds shelter in rock cracks and burrows. It mainly hunts small animals like rabbits and rodents. Female Pallas's cats usually have two to six kittens in the spring.
The Pallas's cat is listed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN Red List since 2020. This means its population is generally stable. However, some groups of these cats face dangers. These include poaching (illegal hunting). Their food sources can also decrease due to programs that control rodents. Their homes are sometimes broken up by mining and building projects. Many zoos have kept Pallas's cats since the 1950s. As of 2018, 60 zoos in Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan help breed these cats.
Contents
What's in a Name?
The name "Manul" comes from the Mongolian language. In the Kyrgyz language, it is called "manol." The common name "Pallas's cat" was given by William Thomas Blanford. He named it after Peter Simon Pallas, who first described the cat.
Scientific Classification
In 1776, Peter Simon Pallas gave this cat its first scientific name, Felis manul. He found it near the Dzhida River in Asia. Later, in 1842, Johann Friedrich von Brandt suggested a new group name, Otocolobus. Today, the Pallas's cat is known as Otocolobus manul.
Scientists have studied different types of Pallas's cats. Since 2017, they recognize two main groups, or subspecies.
- One group, O. m. manul, lives in western and northern Central Asia. This area stretches from Iran to Mongolia.
- The other group, O. m. nigripectus, lives in the Himalayas. You can find them from Kashmir to Bhutan.
Appearance and Features
The Pallas's cat has beautiful, thick fur. It is mostly light grey. Some parts might look yellowish or reddish. In winter, its fur becomes even thicker and greyer. This helps it stay warm. Its forehead and the top of its head are light grey with small black spots. It has two black zigzag lines on its cheeks. These lines run from its eyes to its jaw. Its chin, whiskers, and lips are white.
It has narrow black stripes on its back. There are usually five to seven dark lines across its lower back. Its grey tail has seven thin black rings and a black tip. The fur is very soft and dense. It can have up to 9,000 hairs per square centimeter!
The cat's ears are round and grey. They have a yellowish tint on the back. They are set low on the sides of its head. This helps the cat peek over things without showing much of its head. Its eyes are ringed with white. The iris (the colored part of the eye) is yellowish. Its pupils (the black center) stay round even in bright sunlight. Most cats have slit pupils, but Pallas's cats have round ones, like pumas.
The Pallas's cat is similar in size to a domestic cat. Its thick fur makes it look bigger and fluffier. Its body is 46 to 65 centimeters long. Its tail is 21 to 31 centimeters long. It weighs between 2.5 and 4.5 kilograms. It has a strong, rounded skull. Its legs are short. It has short, sharp claws that can be pulled back. Its teeth are strong, especially for eating meat.
Where Pallas's Cats Live
Pallas's cats live across a wide area. This stretches from the Caucasus Mountains in the west. It goes eastward through Central Asia to Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau. They prefer to live in mountain shrublands and grasslands. They also like rocky areas and ravines. They need places where the snow is not too deep, usually less than 15-20 centimeters.
In the southwest, their homes have cold, dry winters. Summers are warm with little rain. Plants like small shrubs and certain grasses grow there. In the central parts, they live in hilly areas and high plateaus. These places have dry steppes or semi-deserts. The weather here can be extreme. Temperatures can change by 80 degrees Celsius. In winter, it can drop to -50 degrees Celsius.
Pallas's cats have been seen in many countries.
- In Armenia, one was seen in 2020 in a mountain steppe.
- In Iran, they have been recorded in mountains like the Alborz Mountains. One was even caught in a corral in the Zagros Mountains in 2012.
- In Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains, they have been photographed several times since 2007.
- In Pakistan, one was seen in a juniper forest in Qurumber National Park in 2012.
- They are also found in Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.
- In the South Siberian Mountains of Russia, they live in grasslands.
- In Mongolia, they like rocky and rugged places.
- On the Tibetan Plateau in China, they have been seen in high alpine meadows. Some were even seen swimming across a channel!
- In the Indian Himalayas, they were first reported in Ladakh in 1991. They have been seen at very high altitudes, up to 4,800 meters.
- In Nepal, they were first recorded in 2012. Their scat (poop) was found at 5,593 meters. This is the highest record for the species.
- In Bhutan, they were first recorded in 2012 in a national park.
Life and Habits
Pallas's cats are mostly solitary animals. This means they live alone. Only male kittens in captivity have been seen marking their territory with urine.
These cats use caves, rock cracks, and old marmot burrows for shelter. In Mongolia, scientists tracked 29 Pallas's cats. They used over 100 different dens for sleeping and raising kittens. Summer dens and winter dens were used for different lengths of time. Summer dens were often near rocks and out of direct sunlight. Winter dens were closer to ravines.
The area a Pallas's cat uses for living is called its home range. Females had home ranges from 7.4 to 125.2 square kilometers. Males had larger ranges, from 20.9 to 207.0 square kilometers. Male ranges often overlapped with several female ranges. Their home ranges became smaller in winter.
Pallas's cats are often active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular). However, in some areas, they are active during the day. This is especially true where there are fewer farm animals around.
Hunting and Diet
Pallas's cats are skilled hunters of small mammals. They stalk their prey or wait by burrow exits. They can also dig out rodents from shallow burrows with their paws. In the Altai Mountains, they eat ground squirrels, shrews, and pikas. They also eat birds.
In Mongolia, their diet mainly includes Daurian pikas, Mongolian gerbils, and voles. They also eat small birds, beetles, and grasshoppers. In the Himalayas, they eat pikas and woolly hares. Sometimes, they even eat fish!
Reproduction and Life Cycle
Female Pallas's cats can have babies when they are about one year old. They are ready to mate for about 26 to 42 hours. Pregnancy lasts for 66 to 75 days.
In the wild, females give birth to two to six kittens. This usually happens between late April and late May. Newborn kittens have fuzzy fur. Their eyes stay closed for about two weeks. A newborn male kitten in a zoo weighed 89 grams. It was 12.3 centimeters long with a 5.5-centimeter tail.
In Mongolia, mothers used dens among rocks or in old marmot burrows. These dens had at least two entrances. In Iran, one Pallas's cat used hollows in old juniper trees to raise her four kittens.
By two months old, kittens weigh 500-600 grams. Their fur grows longer. They start hunting when they are about five months old. They reach adult size by six to seven months.
Dangers to Pallas's Cats
In the past, Pallas's cats were hunted for their fur. More than 10,000 skins were collected each year in China, Mongolia, and Russia. Hunting became illegal in China and the former Soviet Union in the 1970s. Mongolia stopped exporting skins in 1988. However, some illegal trade of skins and body parts still happens in Mongolia. These are sometimes used for traditional medicine.
Herding dogs have been known to kill Pallas's cats. This has been reported in Iran, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Pallas's cats can also get caught in traps meant for other small animals. Poaching (illegal hunting) is a threat in some areas.
Another danger is rodent control programs. In Mongolia, a poison called bromadiolone was used. This poisoned the small animals that Pallas's cats eat. This also affected other predators like birds of prey. On the Tibetan Plateau, a large area of grassland was poisoned. This led to a huge loss of pikas, a main food source for the cats.
Pallas's cat homes are also being broken up. This happens because of mining and new building projects.
Protecting Pallas's Cats
The Pallas's cat is listed as "Least Concern" on the IUCN Red List since 2020. This is because it lives in many places and has a large population. It is also listed in CITES Appendix II. This means international trade of these cats is controlled. Hunting Pallas's cats is against the law in almost all countries where they live, except Mongolia. Since 2009, it has been fully protected in Afghanistan. All hunting and trade of its parts are banned there.
On Mongolia's Red List of Mammals, it is listed as "Near Threatened" since 2006. In China, it is listed as "Endangered". In Turkmenistan, scientists want to list it as "Critically Endangered" because it is rarely seen there now.
Pallas's Cats in Zoos
Zoos have been trying to keep and breed Pallas's cats for many years. Between 1951 and 1979, the Beijing Zoo had 16 Pallas's cats. However, they did not live very long. In 1984, the Pallas's cat became a special species for breeding programs in American zoos. Sadly, almost half of the kittens born in these zoos died within their first month. This was the highest death rate for any small wild cat in captivity.
Zoos in the former Soviet Union received many wild Pallas's cats. The Moscow Zoo started keeping records of all Pallas's cats in zoos in 1997. Since 2004, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland has managed these records worldwide. They also help coordinate breeding programs in Europe. As of 2018, 177 Pallas's cats lived in 60 zoos. These zoos were in Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan.
In 2011, a female Pallas's cat was artificially inseminated for the first time. This happened at the Cincinnati Zoo. She gave birth to four kittens after 69 days. One of the kittens was stillborn.
See also
In Spanish: Manul para niños
