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Ancestor: Central Cat
Upper: Female showing enlarged blanket-like primordial pouch, and a kitten. The primordial pouch increases the survival chances of kittens acting as a protection from cold, biting gnats, and when still small enough to be fully concealed, even hiding them from the attention of males.Lower: Male showing much smaller primordial pouch. Males develop large fatty "jowls" which give them a large, rounded face. This is a trait that was inherited by the ancestral domestic cat and has remained strong both as a trait that intimidates competitor males and is also attractive to females.
Temporal Range:
Temporal Range:
Evolved: By 2 Myh
Extinct: Not yet
Geographical Range:
Geographical Range:
Location: South West Catland and some of South Catland going Eastward.
Viable Habitat: Forests with clear open forest floor spaces, shrubland, grassland, mountains.
Size: Up to: 110 cm (150 cm with tail), Typical: 90 cm (130 cm with tail)
Dietary Needs: Consumes meat and a small amount of bone. Fresh organs such as liver and intestine are also important for their health. They usually only eat fresh prey, but desperation can force them to scavenge from carcasses.
Their prey are almost all various descendants of rabbits, including large Megors. Megors have thick fatty necks and even with multiple stab wounds they remain strong and difficult to kill. Megakitty canine teeth are long enough to reach through the megor's neck fat to the vertebrae, allowing the megakitty to cripple and possibly even paralyze the Megor. The megakitty can also pierce weak points in the skull of their prey if they get a hold of it's head.
They attack prey by surprise from behind to bite the back of it's neck. There is no payoff to attacking prey from the front. Most prey's self-defence is in their mouths or their claws, and from the front they will notice the cat and react to it.
Very rarely the megakitty will catch and eat birds, lizards, fish, larger species of mice or even smaller species of cat. Juveniles learning to hunt are more likely to catch these smaller prey.
All species of megakitty have upper canines that are drastically longer and thicker than that of the ancestral cat. These teeth have wedging, stabbing and shearing functions. They have a cutting edge that faces the back of the mouth.
Life Cycle: Females and males hold separate hunting territories, but female territories overlap with a dominant male's. This one male will roam his own and these overlapping female territories to keep out rival males and keep himself familiar with the females. They get the females pregnant in winter to give birth in the spring. In some latitudes this cycle is less cyclic and more sporadic. Going North the seasons change, with wet and dry cycles more than once in the year and no winter.
Females seek solitude to give birth to and nurse her kittens, and this is one of the few times she will venture into thick shrubbery and thorn tangle. Such environments are usually too awkward to move through but in this case offer the kittens cover when their mother needs to hunt to eat.
The dominant male's scent markings are usually enough to keep out rival males, but rival males might still roam through. Rival males might be seeking to usurp the dominant male, which in part involves the killing of his offspring which will lower the number of future rivals that are not his own offspring. In the case that kittens are still small the mother will sit on them in a similar fashion to a hen sitting on her eggs, with the primordial pouch acting as a shroud. Although this doesn't protect kittens from all males, it has kept them from the attention of less determined males often enough in this genus's history that the primordial pouch grew larger and is a distinctive way to determine males from females. It also keeps kittens covered from hot sun, cold rain and wind, insects, mice and allows the kittens to sleep with less disturbance from noises.
Kittens are driven out by their mother at around 8-10 months of age after being taught how to hunt. These sub-adults spend a lot of time wandering in search of a territory. This is more difficult for males because a female can be accepted by a dominant male just on the merit of being fertile, fit and healthy. A male however must take over the territory of another dominant male, which many males spend their whole lives trying and failing to do. Some males form roaming bands that mate with females forcefully while avoiding the dominant male, or in some cases driving out or killing the dominant male. Such bands usually erode down to one dominant figure taking over the territory and driving out the others.
Other: They are quite cold tolerant and agile. They survive well in mountainous areas.
The size of megakitty individuals within populations is typically lower where prey size is low or space is constrained, such as in very shrubby habitats. They adaptively constrain growth into adulthood when fed very leanly throughout life, regardless of the species of megakitty. There are also some naturally small species in locations where large prey are absent.
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