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Ancestor: Felis catus (Domestic Cat)

Descendants 2 Myh:

Rocats

Size: 65cm long (without tail),  50 cm tall.

Dietary Needs: Predator that catches and eats rabbit-sized vertebrate prey or smaller. The wooly rabbit is their primary prey, but they also sometimes eat mice, sparrows, lizards, freshwater crustaceans and fish.

Life Cycle: The ancestral females went into estrus multiple times a year, but mountain weather makes winter too hazardous to raise young kittens and they go into anestrus (reproductive inactivity) over the end of autumn and beginning of winter to avoid birthing over winter. Thy will go into estrus a few times prior to the most favourable months, unless they are nursing kittens.

Males will follow receptive females and may even compete to mate with her if she attracts several males. However mating and competing is their only concern. Once the female is pregnant they have no concern for the kittens they have fathered.

Females make a crude nest, which is often a hiding place under tufts of grass, inside hollowed logs, in abandoned rabbit burrows, in caves, anywhere else concealed and somewhat sheltered from wind and rain. Kittens are born blind and helpless and can't eat solids, needing exclusively milk for the first few weeks of life. When they start wandering out of the nest is when they begin on solids, leftovers of their mother's kills. Kittens have an extremely weak odor, as when their mother leaves them to hunt they're completely vulnerable to other male cats who instinctively kill kittens that don't smell like themselves. It helps if their scent is too weak to be sniffed from afar.

Kittens of this species take longer to mature due to the cold, less oxygen and lesser abundance of food. They are able to reproduce at around 7 months, but may stay with their mother for up to a year to learn how to survive, depending on how long she can tolerate them and what season it is.

Other: Although this cat can be capable of living in lowland areas they experience competition down there, while in highland areas they are more suited than other cats to the terrain and climate and have no competition. 

Their paws are slightly larger and more heavy duty as the terrain is harsh on the small, dainty paws of their ancestors. The paws are also very sensitive to gauge each step and apply weight appropriately, as missteps are more costly on the mountain than on low ground.

They have a very thick coat. This coat thins out in the warmer season and thickens in the colder winter season, but at high elevations cold can occur year-round so they are always somewhat fluffy. Their fur is layered, with soft densely packed fur in the fine under-layers and the top layer being coarse, water-repellent and all facing in the same direction to help water run off quickly before soaking in.

When caught in sudden white-outs they hunker down in the snow and curl up, wrapping their tail around their nose and back of their head to prevent frostbite on their nose and ears. Their fur is insulated enough that the snow builds up around them but does not melt, and the heat is kept close to their bodies. The snow itself becomes a makeshift shelter from the windchill. Under the snow the temperature remains more stable. Under these conditions the cats fall asleep, which helps them save energy and avoid producing too much heat (to prevent snow melt and thus prevent soaking of the fur) or using up all their oxygen. When they wake up usually the worst of the white-out blizzard will have stopped or died down.

Despite their affinity to cold, oxygen-poor habitat they do sometimes wander down into lowland areas, and love having sand baths.