Caracals

CARACALS

The Caracal (Caracal caracal), also called Persian Lynx or African Lynx, is a fiercely territorial medium-sized cat. The Caracal is labeled as a small cat, but is amongst the heaviest of all small cats, as well as the fastest.

Males typically weigh about 28-40 lbs, while females are smaller. The Caracal resembles a Eurasian Lynx and for a long time it was considered a close relative of the lynxes. Recent DNA research, however, has shown that the Caracal is not a close relative of lynxes at all, but is instead related to the Serval.

The Caracal is about 2 feet in length , plus a 1 foot tail . It has longer legs and a slimmer appearance than a lynx. The color of the fur is variable: it may be wine-red, grey or sand-colored. Melanistic (black) Caracals also occur. Young Caracals bear reddish spots on the underside; adults do not have markings except for black spots above the eyes.

The most conspicuous feature of the Caracal are its long, tufted black ears, which also explain the origin of its name – karakulak, Turkish for "black ear". Its ears are controlled by 20 different muscles to help it find its prey. The tufts of fur help pinpoint its prey.

The Caracal is distributed over Africa and western Asia. Its habitat is dry steppes and semi-deserts, but also include woodlands, savanna, and scrub forest. It is a solitary, or paired, territorial cat.

The Caracal may survive without drinking for a long period — the water demand is satisfied with the body fluids of its prey. It hunts at night (but in colder seasons also in the daytime) for rodents and hares; rarely it may even attack a gazelle, a small antelope or a young ostrich. It is a picky eater, and discards the internal organs of the mammals it catches, partially plucks the fur off of hyraxes and larger kills, and avoids eating hair by shearing meat neatly from the skin. However, it will eat the feathers of small birds and is tolerant of rotten meat. It is most well-known for its skill with hunting birds; the Caracal is able to snatch a bird in flight, sometimes more than one at a time.

The Caracal can jump and climb exceptionally well, which enables it to catch hyraxes better than probably any other carnivore. Its life expectancy in the wild is 12 years, or 17 years in captivity. Since it is also surprisingly easy to tame, it has been used as a hunting cat in Iran and India.

Male caracals live in a large territory with smaller females' territories surrounding it. Mating occurs year round, and during this time a female can have several partners. She mates with them in order of size and age of the male. Two cubs are born in an abandoned pocupine or aardvark burrow after a gestation period of 11 weeks.

The female moves her young about once a day after they are one month old to avoid detection by predators. They open their eyes at a week old and start to walk around shortly afterwards. By 45 days they start to eat meat regulary. By six months, the young caracals are mature enough to leave their mother's territory to start territories of their own. Males may stray as far away as 90 km to establish a territory, but the females often stay close by, and their territory often overlaps their mother's.

Caracals tend to be nocturnal in the warmer areas of their range, and diurnal in the cooler areas. They are solitary, coming together only to mate. They will rest in dense vegetation or in a rock crevice. They are agile tree-climbers, and will climb a tree to escape dogs or take their kill up a tree like a leopard. Male home ranges are larger than females', and tend to overlap. Females' territories overlapped with each other about half.