55 Fun Facts About Big Cat

Which animal, the fastest land mammal of the New World, would still lose a sprint to a cheetah?

The pronghorn is slower than a cheetah over a sprint, but it can hold high speeds for kilometres, while a cheetah's chase averages under 40 seconds.

What is a group of lions called?

A pride centres on related females, and males who take one over often kill the young cubs, likely so the mothers breed again sooner.

Which Indian ruler commissioned a mechanical organ shaped like a tiger mauling a European?

Tipu Sultan: after he was killed as British troops stormed his capital in 1799, it was shipped to London and put on public display.

Which coat feature tells a jaguar apart from a leopard?

Spots inside its rosettes: a leopard's rosettes lack them, and in both cats the broken pattern helps break up the body's outline.

What is a 'black panther'?

A melanistic leopard or jaguar still has its rosettes: the dark coat hides them, but they show through in the right light.

Which Los Angeles park did P-22, the mountain lion who crossed two freeways, make his home?

Griffith Park: P-22 crossed the 101 and 405 freeways to reach it, and his fame helped fund the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101.

What stops the snow leopard from roaring like the other Panthera cats?

Its vocal folds are too short: it still has the partly ossified hyoid bone that was long credited with letting big cats roar.

In which country did scientists report five wild lionesses that had grown manes?

Botswana: high testosterone likely grew their manes, and though some were seen mating, none became pregnant, suggesting infertility.

What is a liger?

The offspring of a male lion and a tigress usually outgrows both parents, likely because of how growth genes from the two species interact; tigons don't.

Which habit is the tiger famous for, unlike most cats?

Swimming across wide rivers comes naturally: tigers seek out water while most cats avoid it, and they often immerse themselves in water on hot days.

In which state do Asia's last wild lions survive?

Gujarat: Asiatic lions once roamed as far west as Greece, but now survive only in and around its Gir forest.

What do the cheetah's black tear streaks connect?

The eyes and the mouth: the black streaks may help cut the sun's glare as a cheetah fixes its eyes on prey.

On which two islands did wild tigers die out during the 20th century?

Java and Bali: across Asia, tigers now occupy under 7% of their historic range, as people cleared forests and hunted them.

Where is a leopard famous for hauling its kill to keep it from rivals?

Up a tree: leopards are strong enough to haul carcasses heavier than themselves up into the branches before feeding.

Which extinct cat did Ice Age artists paint on the walls at France's Chauvet-Pont d'Arc?

The cave lion: Chauvet has been closed to the public since its discovery to protect its fragile art, so visitors see its lions in a replica cave nearby.

Why may a tiger's orange coat look green to the deer it hunts?

They can't see red, so to deer the orange blends into the greenery, while the stripes break up the tiger's outline in tall grass.

What is one reason lions hunt as a team?

One reason is that much of their prey is faster than they are; lionesses split roles, with some chasing prey toward the centre of the group, where others make the catch.

What is the jaguar's unusual killing method for mammal prey?

Biting through the skull between the ears delivers a fatal blow to the brain, and the same crushing bite lets it crack turtle shells.

Where does the jaguar rank among the world's cat species by size?

Third, after the tiger and lion: stocky and short-legged, the jaguar ambushes its prey rather than chasing it down.

A cheetah's most famous adaptation for speed apart from its legs is which body part?

A flexible spine coils and extends like a spring, stretching the front legs far forward so each stride covers more ground.

Which two predators prey on cheetah cubs and routinely steal adult cheetahs' kills?

Lions and hyenas: that's why a cheetah eats its catch as quickly as it can, before these bigger rivals bully it away.

The Asiatic cheetah, long gone from India, survives in the wild in only which country?

Iran, where only a small population survives in the wild; India's 2022 reintroduction used African cheetahs flown in from Namibia.

Besides helping it balance, what does a snow leopard use its long, thick tail as?

A blanket: it wraps the tail around its body to cover sensitive parts against the cold, while its wide, furry paws are the ones that work like snowshoes.

What is the main wild prey of the snow leopard?

Ibex and blue sheep: snow leopards follow their prey's seasonal migrations, often moving down to lower elevations in winter.

In Kipling's The Jungle Book, which character is a black panther?

Bagheera: he buys the man-cub Mowgli's place in the wolf pack at the price of a freshly killed bull.

Which state was the only place eastern cougars survived the hunting of the early 1900s?

Florida: its inbred panthers were rescued in 1995 when eight female pumas from Texas were released there, and by 2017 their numbers had risen more than fivefold.

Which Kenyan region's man-eating lions killed workers building the Uganda Railway?

Tsavo: isotopes in the two lions' bones and hair show one leaned increasingly on human prey, and dental injuries may have pushed them to softer food.

Which pigment condition gives white lions their pale coats, though they aren't albino?

Leucism: white lions vanished from the wild through human pressure, until some were later reintroduced near South Africa's Kruger Park.

What is the IUCN Red List status of the tiger?

Endangered: tigers are mainly threatened by poaching for their fur and body parts, and by the loss of the forests they live in.

What does a cougar usually do with a large kill it can't finish in one meal?

Covers it with brush: a cougar drags the carcass to a chosen spot, buries it under leaves and debris, and returns to feed over several days.

Armed men drove the Champawat Tiger, blamed for over 430 deaths, out of which country?

Nepal: rather than ending the killings, this pushed her across the border into India's Kumaon, where she kept on killing.

What is the name of the short, soft snorting sound big cats make in friendly greeting?

Prusten: beyond greetings, mothers use it to comfort their cubs, and females in heat prusten more when courting.

Clouded leopards can hang beneath branches by gripping them with what?

Their hind paws: flexible ankles let clouded leopards dangle upside down and even climb down trunks head first.

What do you call a group of male cheetahs, usually brothers, that live together for life?

A coalition: brothers team up to hold a territory where females pass through, while each female roams a far larger range alone.

Why can unrelated cheetahs often accept each other's skin grafts?

Their genes are extremely similar, likely after a population crash about 10,000 years ago, which also leaves cheetahs more vulnerable to disease.

What makes a cheetah's footprint look more like a dog's than a typical cat's?

Its claw tips show: a cheetah's claws are only partly retractile and lack a protective sheath, so they grip the ground like running spikes.

Which lions, extinct in the wild, are thought to live on in the Moroccan royal family's captive collection?

Barbary lions: Morocco's sultans and kings long kept these lions, and their descendants have since been bred in coordination across Moroccan and European zoos.

'Ounce', an old name for the snow leopard, traces back through Old French 'lonce' to which Greek word?

Lynx: French speakers took the L of 'lonce' for the article 'the', as in l'once, so the word lost its L.

Which country lost its breeding jaguars, leaving only rare sightings of lone males?

The US: jaguars once ranged across its southern states, but hunting and habitat loss have left the species in about half its former range.

How can you tell a white tiger from a true albino tiger?

Blue eyes and dark stripes: a white tiger lacks only the orange pigment in its fur, while a true albino lacks pigment altogether and has pink eyes.

Which US law, first signed in December 2003, bans the interstate sale and transport of big cats as pets?

It covers lions, tigers, leopards, snow and clouded leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, cougars and their hybrids; 19 states ban ownership outright.

How do related lionesses, the stable core of a lion group, treat an outside lioness?

They drive her away: most females spend their lives in the group they were born into, while all the young males leave.

Cecil, the lion whose killing by a trophy hunter in 2015 sparked a global outcry, lived in which country?

Zimbabwe: the outcry pushed Delta, United and other major airlines to stop flying hunters' big-game trophies.

The four bronze lions around London's Nelson's Column were designed by which painter?

Edwin Landseer: the dead lion he worked from began to decompose during delays, so its paws ended up modelled on a cat's.

Namibia's Cheetah Conservation Fund breeds guard dogs from which country to protect farmers' herds from cheetahs?

Turkey: its Anatolian shepherds and Kangals bark loudly enough to warn cheetahs off, so farmers have less need to shoot them.

Which two big cats share the forests of Russia's Far East?

The leopard and the tiger: tigers can kill leopards, so leopards tend to avoid the places where tigers are most common.

Which relative of the alligator is regular jaguar prey in Brazil's Pantanal wetland?

The caiman: Pantanal jaguars now draw so many wildlife tourists that jaguar-watching earns local communities valuable income.

Which call do cheetah mothers use to find their cubs?

A chirp: mothers use it to call their cubs, and male cheetahs chirp to find companions they've been separated from.

In Greek myth, how did Heracles kill the Nemean lion, whose hide arrows couldn't pierce?

He strangled it with his bare hands, and in most tellings he then wore its hide as a cloak, one of his most famous attributes.

The cheetah is the only living member of which genus?

Acinonyx: despite its spotted coat, the cheetah's closest living relatives turn out to be the cougar and the jaguarundi.

Which book tells how Joy Adamson raised Elsa, an orphaned lion cub, in Kenya?

Born Free. Making its film in Kenya changed stars Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who went on to found the charity now called the Born Free Foundation.

The word 'cheetah' comes via Hindi from a Sanskrit word meaning what?

Variegated or painted, for its spotted coat. Its dark tear marks may help it hunt by day by cutting the sun's glare.

Which country holds at least half of all snow leopard habitat?

China. The cat's range takes in the vast Tibetan Plateau, most of which lies within China's borders.

Which two islands are home to the Sunda clouded leopard?

Borneo and Sumatra. In 2006 a genetic study and a study of coat markings found the island cats distinct enough to be split off as their own species.

A mythical winged snow leopard, the Aq Bars, appears on the coat of arms of which Russian republic?

Tatarstan. The white leopard has long been a symbol of the Tatars, so the republic's arms show it winged and carrying a round shield.