Pantanal jaguars eat caimans. They often hunt them from a tree or an elevated position.

Catching a caiman is no easy task: You’re supposed to break its neck… without getting the pointed end of the animal turning back toward you. Then, the not-so-easy part is to bring the victim back up out of the water for an easier meal.

This will allow feeding the younger generation.

And, even – sometimes – sharing a piece of meat with some other friend:

To be finished with a post-prandial drink:

Via GeekPress.

• Panthera leo leo (the African lion)
• Panthera leo persica (the Asiatic lion)

You have to admit that this was relatively well understood and scientists were discussing the differences between African populations of lions. Where there actual sub-species or independent populations of the same species.

Now, this is challenged very seriously by the most recent scientific studies (as usual in science, it’s still a bit early to settle this into the official theory; but it’s getting more interesting). Recent studies (mostly genetic ones) have shown that the Asiatic lions are more similar to East-Africa lions. And there are more differences than initially expected between African lions.

So, the latest proposal from the Cat Specialist Group (at the Species Survival Commission SSC of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)) is to define two species:

• Panthera leo leo (also called the Northern subspecies)
• Panthera leo melanochaita (the Southern subspecies)

This is a good example of science progress: New data forces to revise the existing understanding to integrate the old facts, the new facts into a better theory. In the case at hand, it is admitted that external physical characteristics and behaviors (and Asiatic lions and North-Eastern African lions are different from these points of view) would be less important to define species. In the past, genetic information was not available and scientists from the past had to rely on available information.

Source: A revised taxonomy of the Felidae, in CATnews Special Issue 11, Winter 2017.

Don’t try this at home. Or with your own Fido, not with Nala…

Is there anything dirtier?

The tourist has been tracked and found. He paid $55,000 to leave with the skin and head of the superb animal who was loved and admired by all (bar one). It was an American dentist, Walter James Palmer (first suspicions were wrongly looking toward a Spanish touist).

Even in his country, he is now reviled. At least, not all the North American are not this kind of a-hole. I specially appreciated Jimmy Kimmel’s reaction on his TV show: He is asking what reason could draw a normal man to such an act: The Vox: Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue about Cecil the lion.

Let all lion hunters know that they are often out of the law and they are all the dirtiest of the dirtiest, not worth being part of the human society.

More importantly, if the common leopard/panther really is an identifiable species (Panthera pardus), many other species holding a leopard name belong to à completely different order:

• The Snow leopard should probably be called Uncia (Panthera uncia).
• The Clouded panther is actually a Neofelis nebulosa and belongs to a distinct genre (Neofelis) which is only remotely linked to lions, tigers and true leopards.

As a matter of fact, the most attentive (or trained) eye could distinguish morphologies between those animals even without looking at their pelt colored patterns (which is still very distinctive for most of them).

Only the China Panther is of the same family as the common leopard and keeps most of its characteristics.

Anyway, Paul Steyn observed such a behaviour (a leopard female trying to enter the nest of an eagle). But, in the end, even if the eagle flew avoding any risk, the leopard did not catch anything.

Acrobatic Leopard Raids Eagle’s Nest

A tiger is really a big big cat. But it’s also as curious as any kitten.