Felidae facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Felidae Temporal range: Oligocene–Present, 30.8–0Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Tiger Canada lynx Asian golden cat Ocelot Serval Cougar Fishing cat European wildcat
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Suborder:	Feliformia
Family:	Felidae Fischer von Waldheim, 1817
Type genus
Felis Linnaeus, 1758
Subfamilies
†Machairodontinae Pantherinae Felinae

Where wild cats live around the world today.

Felidae is the scientific name for the cat family. A member of this family of mammals is called a felid. This animal group belongs to the order Carnivora. Today, scientists recognize 41 living cat species. The group includes familiar pets like the house cat and wild hunters like the mighty tiger.

Cats live on every continent except Antarctica and Australia, though humans introduced house cats everywhere. Felids are strict meat-eaters, meaning their bodies require meat to survive. They are famous for being sneaky hunters with sharp senses, flexible bodies, and curved claws.

Amazing Features of Cats
The History and Evolution of Cats
- Saber-Toothed Cats
The Living Cat Family Tree
- Pantherinae: The Roaring Cats
- Felinae: The Small and Medium Cats
Behavior and Hunting
See also

Amazing Features of Cats

Extended claws of a house cat

Lionesses grooming each other

All cats share special physical traits that make them top hunters. They walk on their toes, a style called digitigrade walking. They have five toes on their front paws and four on their back paws. Their feet have soft pads that help them sneak up quietly on prey.

Most cats have curved claws that can pull inside protective sheaths of skin. This claw movement uses strong tendons and ligaments connected to their toe bones. Keeping claws tucked away keeps them sharp for climbing and catching food. Only the cheetah (Acinonyx) keeps its claws out all the time for running speed. Cats also have extra thumb-like claws called dewclaws on their front feet.

Super Senses for Hunting

Cats have incredible vision to find prey. Their eyes face forward, giving them excellent binocular vision to judge distances accurately. Inside their eyes, a special reflective mirror layer called the tapetum lucidum bounces light around. This layer makes their eyes glow in flashlights and lets them see six times better in the dark than people. Their retina has many rod cells to spot moving objects at night, alongside cone cells for daylight color vision.

Cats also have fantastic hearing. Their outer ears, called pinnae, can twist like small satellite dishes. Smaller cats can hear ultra-high squeaks made by a tiny rodent. Cats use long, stiff whiskers on their cheeks, muzzle, and eyes to feel their surroundings. These sensitive hairs help them creep through narrow spaces in total darkness.

Cats even have a hidden sense organ called the vomeronasal organ in the roof of their mouth. When a cat curls its upper lip in a funny face called the flehmen response, it tastes scents floating in the air. Interestingly, cats cannot taste sugar because they lack sweet taste buds.

Powerful Teeth and Body Build

A cat's skull is short and rounded with powerful jaw muscles. Adult cats have 30 specialized teeth. Long, pointed canine teeth grip prey securely. Further back in the mouth, special scissor-like teeth called carnassial teeth slice tough meat into small bites. Their pattern of teeth is perfectly built for eating meat.

A cat's tongue feels just like sandpaper. It is covered in tiny backward hooks called papillae. These rough spikes help brush fur during grooming and scrape meat clean off bones. Cats also have special fast-twitch muscle fibers that give them explosive speed when chasing dinner.

How Cats Communicate

Cats make many different sounds to talk to each other. They meow, hiss, spit, chuff, and growl. Smaller cats can purr while breathing in and out. Purring happens when muscles quickly vibrate near the throat during normal breathing.

Big cats like the lion, leopard, jaguar, and tiger have a flexible throat and hyoid apparatus. This special throat design lets them produce thunderous roars instead of purrs. Snow leopards cannot make a true roar, and the clouded leopard (Neofelis) neither purrs nor roars.

Coats and Camouflage

Cat coats come in many beautiful colors and patterns. Most wild cats are covered in spots, stripes, or flower-shaped patterns called rosettes. These patterns break up the cat's outline in tall grass or forest shadows. Some cats develop completely black fur due to melanism, while others may have white coats through leucism or albinism.

Cats living in freezing snowy mountains, like the snow leopard and Pallas's cat, grow thick, warm coats. Tropical wild cats have sleek, short coats. Baby lions and young cougars have spotted coats when born, but their spots fade away during growth to adulthood.

The History and Evolution of Cats

Timeline showing how cats evolved

Cats belong to a larger mammal branch called cat-like carnivores. Long ago, this branch separated from dog-like carnivores called canines and bears. The closest living relatives to cats are slender tree-dwelling creatures called linsangs.

The very first cat-like animals showed up during the Oligocene epoch about 30 million years ago. Scientists digging up ancient rocks have excavated early fossil bones from famous spots like the Hsanda Gol Formation. An early ancient ancestor was Proailurus, which lived right after the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event. Another important prehistoric ancestor named Pseudaelurus spread across Europe, Asia, and North America during the Miocene epoch.

Saber-Toothed Cats

During the Miocene epoch, an amazing group of cats appeared: the Machairodontinae. These famous prehistoric animals are often called saber-toothed cats. They grew giant curved saber teeth in their upper jaws to hunt giant prehistoric plant-eaters.

Famous hunters like Smilodon, Homotherium, and Megantereon ruled North America and Afro-Eurasia. However, false saber-tooth animals like the Nimravidae and Barbourofelidae were distant cousins, not true cats. Saber-toothed cats vanished around 10,000 years ago during the end-Pleistocene extinction. Changing climates, disappearing prey, and the arrival of early humans contributed to their disappearance.

The Living Cat Family Tree

Model of the ancient cat Megantereon

Fossil head of a young Homotherium cub compared with a lion cub

Drawing of the extinct American lion

Scientists divide modern cats into two main subfamilies: roaring big cats and purring small cats.

Pantherinae: The Roaring Cats

The big cat subfamily Pantherinae contains two groups:

The genus Neofelis, which includes the clouded leopard and the Sunda clouded leopard.
The genus Panthera, which includes the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard.

The tiger is the largest cat on Earth today. Big male tigers can measure up to 390 centimeters long and weigh up to 325 kilograms.

Felinae: The Small and Medium Cats

The subfamily Felinae includes all other living cats across 12 different groups:

The caracal group: The tall-eared caracal (Caracal), the African golden cat, and the long-legged serval (Leptailurus).
The ocelot group: Spotted American cats in the genus Leopardus, such as the ocelot, margay, Andean mountain cat, Pampas cat, Geoffroy's cat, kodkod, and oncilla.
The bay cat group: Asian forest cats like the marbled cat (Pardofelis), Asian golden cat, and the rare bay cat (Catopuma).
The lynx group: Tufted-eared wild cats in the genus Lynx, including the bobcat, Canada lynx, Eurasian lynx, and rare Iberian lynx.
The puma group: The speedy cheetah (Acinonyx), the sleek jaguarundi (Herpailurus), and the powerful cougar (Puma).
The leopard cat group: Small Asian hunters such as the Pallas's cat (Otocolobus), rusty-spotted cat, flat-headed cat, fishing cat, and leopard cat (Prionailurus). The tiny rusty-spotted cat weighs only about one kilogram!
The domestic cat group: The genus Felis, which includes the black-footed cat, desert-dwelling sand cat, jungle cat, Chinese mountain cat, African wildcat, and European wildcat. This group also includes our friendly pet, the domestic cat.

Behavior and Hunting

Wild cats live in many different environments. Some roam deep tropical rain forests, while others hunt across open grassy savannas. Sand cats thrive in hot arid deserts, while snow leopards navigate rocky mountain peaks. Some species, like the fishing cat, love water and catch fish in swampy wetlands.

Most wild cats are solitary animals that prefer to live and hunt alone. The lion is a famous exception, living in family groups called prides. Cats are skilled ambush predators that creep silently through cover before pouncing with lightning speed.

Different cats hunt at different times of the day. Many are nocturnal, waking up to hunt under the cover of night. Others are crepuscular, hunting during the quiet hours of dawn and dusk. Some cats are diurnal, choosing to stay active during broad daylight.