100,000 Years Henceforth
South Central Catland
South Central Catland
The Southern, habitable half of Central Catland is split into three discrete sections by the mountain ridges that were pushed up by continental collision several million years prior to the first seeding.
The North West section is hot and humid, with tepid and dry winters. It becomes increasingly drier towards the East until it meets harsh desert.
The South West section is also humid, but cooler than the North West section. It is still hot in summer, but may get slightly cool in winter and experience rare light snowfall. South beyond it is South West Catland which is climatically distinct and thus described separately. This section does not connect to any arid area and only has mild dry seasons with rare droughts.
The East section has climate and flora similar to East Catland: wet at the South near the ocean, but drier further inland with the dominating biome being grassland. Further North is desert. Rivers are fed by distant mountains and are dry beds for months of the year.
The mountains that separate these sections have low points that are not too difficult to traverse, so species are able to cross between the sections gradually over time. There are sometimes subspecies variations between these sections.
The common species of cat here is the Central Cat (Catus divulgaris), though the Mountain Cat (Catus Montanis), Jumping Cat (Catus desultor) and the Forest Cat (Catus desilva) have ranges that overlap the central region slightly, and thus the Central Cat may sometimes have encounters with these other cat species. They tend to dominate other cat species in size and power, preventing other species from effectively forming territories in the central region. Meanwhile, the Central Cat is expanding outward from it's current range.
Dash mice (Musculus discurro) are suited for the open habitat by having longer legs and feet for quick, springing movements. They are also sometimes burrowers, especially on flood plains where the soil is more suitable (and at times of year it isn't flooded). They also make nests in dense clumps of grass which not only offer concealment but also some minor barrier against a predator's pounce, offering the mouse a second opportunity to flee. They often fall prey to Central Cats but are not the cat's main prey.
The cat's main prey are rabbits. Grassy Rabbits (Cuniculus herbidus) live in the North West section of South Central Catland, but this is the limit of their range Eastward. Central Cats are the only threat to the larger older rabbits of this species, as these cats have a larger mouth and bite than even the Jumping Cats (which evolved to hunt the younger, smaller, faster members of the Grassy Rabbit species). The Central Cat's larger bite better equips them to penetrate the thick-necked rabbit's spinal cord and interrupt signals between the body and the brain, which is necessary for the kind of prey that can fight back and cause serious harm. Ambush is the preferred hunting method. The North West section's subspecies of Central Cat is larger than other subspecies for this reason, as the rabbit prey of the other subspecies is smaller and they never encounter the Grassy Rabbits which are the largest rabbits.
Another rabbit species found across the whole South Central Catland zone is the Long Rabbit (Cuniculus extruditur). They consist of two subspecies. One is in the South West and is suited to greener lusher mix of grassland and shrubland habitat. They also inhabit the East section of the zone close to the sea where habitat is more lush. They are small squirmy rabbits with tubular bodies and good navigation abilities and memory, able to lose predators in a maze of grasses and other plants, and squeeze through tight openings in vegetation that the larger cats have to barge through, losing speed and sometimes sight of their prey. The habitat is more open and grassy than South Catland, but is reminiscent of it with it's clumps of dense matted vegetation and winding, trailing plants like some new types of mulberry and catnips.
The other subspecies lives in the East section of South Central Catland. They also have the tubular body of this species, but to a lesser degree, resembling more of the classic rabbit shape. They are slightly larger than the other subspecies also. The range of this rabbit is bleeding into East Catland, spreading slowly but gradually through the narrow land passage between the mountains and the sea.