All 40 Species of Wild Cat (Organised by Lineage)

#cats #animals #textbooktravel
Wildcats are some of the most beautiful and interesting animals on the planet. There are 40 species of wildcat separated into 8 distinct lineages providing one of the most interesting stories of evolution in the animal kingdom. The oldest split between all remaining extant species of cat occurred more than 10 million years ago when Pantherine containing the big five split from Felinae containing the rest of the felids. The Felinae family then continued to diverge until around 1-3 million years ago producing amount others, the Caracal, Ocelot, Lynx, Puma and Domestic Cat lineages. In this guide, we'll explore each split in the Felidae family and the lineages and species of wild cats these evolutionary divergences produced.