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African Golden Cat
Today we continue with the most amazing felines that you can find on this beautiful planet, felines have stood out among many animals for their behavior, is one of the most intelligent mammals on the planet. Today it is the turn of the African golden cat. Join me to learn more about this incredible creature.
Its scientific name is Caracal aurata is a feline that, like its popular name African golden cat, lives in the savannas and tropical jungles of this great continent, especially in the western part of Africa and some areas of the central part. It is currently one of the most threatened felines due to its poaching and product of pollution and gradual deforestation of its habitat.
Among its main characteristics, we can find that it is not a big feline due to its average size of 100 cm maximum length without including the tail that can measure 50 centimeters long, its maximum weight is 16 kilograms. Between males and females, there is no sexual dimorphism.
When they are puppies their skin is not reddish golden but rather gray, but when they reach sexual maturity at the year of birth they acquire their particular golden red color, their ears are rounded and with a darker tone, their tail is quite long as mentioned is almost half the overall size.
Like other felines, the African golden cat is an excellent hunter and has an incredible ability to climb trees, to communicate using a kind of language through vocalizations, are cousins of the caracal so its scientific name is similar belong to the family Profiles.
Their main habitat is tropical jungles, they will never be higher than 4000 meters high, they prefer heat and humidity where they can find a variety of prey, their behavior is variable, it depends on their geographical location, they may be active hunting at night or during the day this indicates that they are very versatile with the schedules, they have amazing adaptive capacity. He prefers areas with a lot of weeds.
Its diet is based on the ingestion of rodents, a great variety of birds, some small mammals such as monkeys, antelopes, and domestic cattle. You will always be willing to consume whatever is in your territory, even has scavenging behaviors.
As for their reproduction we have that the state of gestation is of 80 days maximum, having up to 2 cats that weigh 235 grams, thanks to the milk of the mother the first 8 weeks of life manage to grow quickly, enough so that they stop drinking milk and begin to feed on their own, the mother will train them for 1 year until they reach sexual maturity.
It should not be confused with the caracal, scientific studies determined that they belong to the same family but if they are very different species, currently the African golden cat is considered a vulnerable species due to hunting by the populations where habitat, these people consider the meat of the African golden cat an exquisite so it is usually consumed in traditional dishes, The other factor that has them in danger is the fact that their habitat has been modified, constructions, peasant settlements with their crops has made the golden cat migrate to other areas where despite having a power of adaptation is practically unnatural the way it has to flee. Some organizations have managed to create refuge areas for this species that is a true icon of African culture.
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