THE Best Cat Cam-Trap Images

Don't look too surprised, giant kitty — you're live on candid camera trap! Zoologists and ecologists these days use "camera traps," or motion-activated cameras hidden in natural habitats, to observe wildlife without harming them. The resulting pictures are often heartbreakingly gorgeous, occasionally goofy, and reveal animals we never knew existed.

Top image: An African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) amazed by a camera trap in Kenya, 2011. via National Geographic.

A Borneo bay cat (Pardofelis badia), captured in November 2013.

Only 2,500 of them are thought to exist on Borneo, the third largest island in the world. These rarely spotten animals were first photographed in 2003.

Five Wild Cat Species Photographed in Indonesia, 2013

3
Clouded leopard


Golden cat


Marbled cat


Leopard cat


Sumatran tiger

An African golden cat (Profelis aurata) from Uganda's Kibale National Park, November 2013

A female Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) with two cubs in the Wangqing Nature Reserve, China, November 2013

(via National Geographic)

Javan leopard caught on camera trap from CIFOR stock footage library on Vimeo.

A wild tiger chasing a porcupine in the Indian Terai, April 2013

(via Panthera)

An oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus), photographed in Bolivia's Madidi National park, July 2012

(via LiveScience)

A female Bengal Tiger carrying a one-month-old cub, taken in the Kosi River Corridor, India, November 2011

(via Wired)

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