European wildcat
| European wildcat | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | Felis |
| Species: | F. silvestris |
| Subspecies: | F. s. silvestris |
| Trinomial name | |
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Felis silvestris silvestris Schreber, 1777 |
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| Approximate European wildcat range within Europe (excluding the Asian part of Turkey and the Caucasus) | |
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| Felis silvestris range within Europe. | |
The European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) is a wildcat subspecies that inhabits forests of Western, Southern Central and Eastern Europe up to the Caucasus Mountains. The population in Scotland is critically small. It has been extirpated in England and Wales, and is absent in Scandinavia.
In France, European wildcats are predominantly nocturnal, but are also active in the daytime when undisturbed by human activities.
The European wildcat is much bigger and stouter than the domestic cat, has longer fur and a shorter non-tapering bushy tail. It has a striped fur and a dark dorsal band. Males average a weight of 5 kg (11 lb) up to 8 kg (18 lb), and females 3.5 kg (7.7 lb). Their weight fluctuates seasonally up to 2.5 kg (5.5 lb).
Large males in Spain reach 65 cm (26 in) in length, with a 34.5 cm (13.6 in) long tail, and weigh up to 7.5 kg (17 lb). They also have a less diffuse stripe pattern, proportionally larger teeth, and feed more often on rabbits than the wildcats north of the Douro-Ebro, which are more dependent on small rodents.
Since European wildcats and domestic cats interbreed, it is difficult to distinguish European wildcats and striped hybrids correctly on the basis of only morphological characters.
European wildcats live primarily in broad-leaved and mixed forests. They avoid intensively cultivated areas and settlements. The northernmost population lives in northern and eastern Scotland. There are two disconnected populations in France. The one in the Ardennes in the country's north-east extends to Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium. The other in southern France may be connected via the Pyrenees to populations in Spain and Portugal. In Germany, the Rhine is a major barrier between the population in Eifel and Hunsrück mountains west of the river and populations east of the river, where a six-lane highway hampers dispersal. The population in the Polish Carpathian Mountains extends to northern Slovakia and western Ukraine. In Switzerland, wildcats are present in the Jura Mountains. Three fragmented populations in Italy comprise one in the country's central and southern part, one in the eastern Alps that may be connected to populations in Slovenia and Croatia. The Sicilian population is the only Mediterranean insular population that has not been introduced.
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Wikipedia