Pallas Cat

Taxomony

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Family: Felidae

Order: Carnivora

Genus: Felis

Species: Felis manul Pallas

Evolution

Subspecies: Felis manul ferrugunea, Felis manul manul, and Felis manul nigripecta

How long the Pallas cat has living: It's evolution dates back as far as 10 million years

Closest Living relatives: wildcat, jungle cat, and sand cat. They are all apart of the Felis genus.

3 ancestors: African wildcat, fishing cat, and Iriomote cat

Description

Physical description: A small wild cat with long and dense light gray fur. Its rounded ears are set low on the sides of the head.

Key characteristics: Dense fur that keeps them warm during the winter

Size: Around 20-24 inches with am 8-10 inch long tail.

Weight: weigh between 4-11 pounds

Life span: can live to be 8 to 9 years old

Differences between males and females: not many differences other than females are typically smaller

Habitat

Amount of rainfall: Central Asia- 10in

Plants: The forest grows nuts and fruits such as walnuts, almonds, pears, plums, cherries, maples and a species called Juglans Cathayana (Chinese walnuts)

Animals: Snow leopard, Eurasian lynx, Golden eagle, and Caracal

Temperature: Generally, in Central Asia, winters are moderate to cool (temperature is 26F- 68F). The summers are warm to hot (temperature is 68F-104F).

Terrain: Shrublands, grasslands, deserts, and rocky areas

Distribution

Continents found: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan

Invasive at all: No invasive species

Diet:

What does it eat?: Pallas cats eat small prey including marmots, pikas, ground squirrels, voles, gerbils, and hamsters. At times they will eat small lizards and birds.

How often?: Hunting success rate is unknown

How does it get its food?: They are ambush predators. They will often wait until their prey leaves their burrow or they will stick their paws in and try to scoop out their prey.

Any special foods?: They don't really have any special foods, but on certain occasions they will eat fish, like, smelt, herring, and capelin

Social Structure

Packs or solo?: Pallas cats are solitary and territorial animals

Roles within community: No roles

Who leads?: Normally male will if it's mating season

Who makes up the group?: The one cat

How do they interact?: Try not to be in another cats territory. Will know because both males and females have ways of marking their territory

Reproduction

How often do they mate?: Annual mating seasons

How many mates?: They are polygamous. A male will have many female mates

Time of year for mating?: December to March

Mating rituals: The male will follow the female for several days during the mating season. At times the male will try and guard her from other males. Mating call has been said to sound like a cross between the bark of a small dog and hoot of an owl.

Number of offspring produced?: Between 2 to 6 kittens

Unique mating characteristics?: Short mating season. females are in estrus for 26-42 hours

Development

Stages of development: They moult their juvenile coat around 2 months. They're independent at roughly 4-5 months. Achieve adult size and weight around 8 months

How old before sexual maturity: 9-10 months

Activities and environment of stages: They stay with their moms for a couple of months. When they become independent they have all the skills they need to survive. When they become independent they leave their mom and find their own territory which normally has caves and spans to be 2-3 miles.

Differences between males and females: There isn't much difference between them in development.

Causes of death:

Predation: they have a few predators including, snow leopards, wolves and eagles.

Sexual competition: they don't have any sexual competition

Disease: Acute toxoplasmosis

Other causes: old age

Competition

Inter-species: Other Pallas cats

Intra-species: Red foxes and Corsac foxes

What do they compete over?: Inter-species, food and mates. Intra-species, food because they go for similar prey for food.

Affect of invasive species: Nothing

IUCN Rating:

Rating: least concerned

Population: 58,000

Population trend: decreasing

Impact of Humans

What impacts have occurred?: Pallas's cats are hunted for their fur, which is illegally traded in China. Traditional medicinal practices in Mongolia. Russia prize their parts for popular treatments.

Potential future impacts: climate change (having an unstable environment)

How long have humans been in contact?: 9,000 to 5,000 years ago

Efforts being made to minimize impacts: There are many groups that are trying to spread awareness about the pallas cats conditions, like, Pallas Cats Project (http://pallascats.org)

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