Owners snap cute pictures of their moggies sleeping in miniature beds made for dolls
Owners snap adorable pictures of pets as they sleep in miniature beds
Craze started in Japan but has got worldwide following
Dolls beds come from Ikea and cost as little as £16 including bedding
By
Kate Pickles For Mailonline
Published: 6 July 2015
It's the new cat-napping craze that is proving the ultimate in creature comforts for pets. Felines across the globe have been kicking dolls from their beds so they can slumber in snug surrounds. Owners have been taking photographs of their contented pets as they snooze in the pint-sized beds, intended for children's toys.
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Comfortable: A cat looks incredibly relaxed as it lies on its little bed, complete with checkered blanket
The Ikea furniture seem the purr-fect size for moggies who can sprawl out until their heart's content. The
cute series of pictures show three cats on bunk beds and another of an
overweight tabby called Sam, looking very relaxed as he casually hangs a
paw over the side.
Three storey: These three moggies look content with their choice of bunk in this adorable picture
Are you awake? These two cats have a rest in their doll beds, lying side by side
Cat thoroughly unimpressed as Bulldog disturbs her sleep...
Adorable Sue and Larry are pictured with their beds together, lying side by side under their own mismatching blankets. The
beds measure approximately half a metre and come complete with bedding
from furniture giants IKEA, with prices starting from £16. Beware they could leave other pets feeling like they are in the dog house.
Morning: This cat and dog look contented on their bunk beds, designed for dolls but the perfect size for these pets
Cat nap: One tabby is sound asleep with a colourful blanket covering it as it gets 40 winks
Unsure: This feline looks set to pounce as it lies on the blue bed sheets while accompanied by two rats
Sshh, I'm sleeping: One moggy sneaks a nap in its white bed which matches its coat
Too hot: This little cat looks sound asleep on top of the comfortable duvet cover
FOUR PAWS finally gets now famous baby lions over the border to Jordan
Source:Four Paws International
photo-release
BOSTON, July 6, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VIENNA/AMMAN- 06.07.2015
– Huge relief for the FOUR PAWS team and its supporters: Sunday
afternoon the animal welfare workers could finally take the lion cubs
from the crisis area and cross the last border post on their way to
Israel. The journey of the young big cats is now almost complete. On the
same evening, they were released to an outdoor enclosure at the transit
station in Jordan. In autumn, the animals (together with other wild
animals) will be released at the sanctuary Al Ma'wa for Nature and
Wildlife.
FOUR PAWS, the international animal welfare organisation, has worked on
this planned rescue in detail for weeks. On Thursday an emergency
rescue team under the lead of Dr. Amir Khalil finally reached Gaza from
Amman via Israel. Despite the available entry permits there were long
waiting periods on the side of the de facto regime of the Gaza Strip.
After hours of negotiations the majority of the team were not allowed to
pass, team leader Dr. Khalil decided not to separate the team and spend
the night in the so called no-man's-land.
The next morning, a small part of the FOUR PAWS team, who were
authorised by the Hamas, entered the Gaza Strip to negotiate with the
owner ofthe lion cubs in the refugee camp for one last time and collect
the young big cats. Khalil is relieved: "It was very hard for the father
of the family, who bought the lion cubs from Rafah zoo in March, to say
goodbye, but we are very happy that he finally sees reason. A small
flat is not an appropriate place for wild animals and they pose a danger
to all humans in their surroundings." After the hand-over of the
animals, the female being weak and apathetic, received new names: Shalom
and Salam. The brave "bringers of peace" spent most of their time
huddled together closely. "They didn't really realise the whole turmoil
evolving around them", said Khalil.
At the planned exit to Israel on Friday morning the Israeli officials
abruptly closed the border. The team on site remained calm and patient.
After long negotiations with the Hamas, all team members, together with
Shalom and Salam, were allowed back to Gaza, where they spent the night
at a hotel.
On Sunday afternoon there was finally certainty: FOUR PAWS could pass
the last border post to Israel and they continued their travel to
Jordan. A first medical check showed that Shalom and Salam suffer from a
skin disease, the female (Shalom) additionally has swelling on the back
of her head, which probably derives from a stroke. In the "New Hope
Center", the transit station of Al Ma'wa Wildlife Sanctuary in Jordan,
the five month old lions will undergo a more thorough medical
examination.
A rescue action such as the one for the Gaza lion cubs involves
extensive effort and accumulates high costs. This mission has been
especially supported by a married couple from Austria. Only thanks to
the numerous sponsors is it possible for FOUR PAWS to provide help and
assistance in a quick, efficient and professional way.
Although Gaza is small, there are around 40 big cats there. Smuggling
of exotic animals is a major problem. Even Shalom's and Salam's parents
are said to have been smuggled to Rafah Zoo as cubs, by underground
tunnels from Egypt into Gaza. However, military conflict last year saw
the Egyptian army destroy many of the tunnels.
This is not FOUR PAWS' first operation in the Middle East: in September
2014 the organisation carried out an emergency mission in the
heavily-damaged Al-Bisan Zoo in the north of the Gaza Strip, and three
lions were also transferred to New Hope Center in Jordan. In April, a
FOUR PAWS emergency team carried out a relief operation to provide
medical treatment and food to the animals in the run-down Khan Younis
Zoo in Gaza.
#FOURPAWSgowild
Around the world thousands of big cats are forced to live and suffer in
circuses, ill-conditioned zoos, or in private hands. Many are kept in
extremely cramped conditions, are incorrectly or insufficiently fed, are
ill, or exhibit behavioural disorders. FOUR PAWS aims to improve the
situation for these fascinating but also dangerous wild animals. One of
the facilities run by the organization is the unique Big Cat Sanctuary
LIONSROCK in South Africa, which now offers a species-appropriate home
to over a hundred lions and tigers from poorly kept conditions. FOUR
PAWS also runs far-reaching campaigns for big cats in human care,
including campaigning for a ban on wild animals in circuses, and the
closure of inadequate zoos.
With #FOURPAWSgowild, people concerned with animal welfare bring into
focus both animal suffering and solutions for it. Under the disguise of
entertainment (circuses), education (zoos), medicine/tradition (healing
substances made from tiger bones), and sport (trophy hunting in Africa)
thousands of big cats in Europe, South Africa and the USA lead miserable
lives in appalling conditions. The international #FOURPAWSgowild
campaign gives them a voice.
Experts clash over whether they count as a domesticated species.
By David Grimm
Are cats with us or against us?
Photos by Mark Large/Getty Images and Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
The other night, before my wife and I put our 2½-year-old twins to bed, she began reading them one of their favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are. Juliet, in Dalmatianpajamas, asked, “Mommy, where are
the wild things?” My wife glanced over at our gray-and-white tabby
curled up on a chair nearby. “Well,” she said, “Jasper’s a wild thing.”
Juliet looked incredulous. “Jasper’s not a wild thing,” she said. “He’s a
cat!”
The dispute is understandable. Though cats have lived with us for
nearly 10,000 years and are the world’s most popular pet, experts
disagree about whether they’re actually domestic animals. Our feline
companions don’t really need us, after all: They can hunt for
themselves, and they go feral without human contact. A scientific paper
published last year uncovered some of the first genes responsible for
domestication—all in the cat genome—yet still referred to cats as
“semi-domesticated.” Other scientists vehemently disagree with that
designation. “There’s no difference between a domesticated cat and a
domesticated anything else,” says Greger Larson, an evolutionary
biologist at the University of Oxford who has studied the domestication
of pigs, dogs, and a variety of other animals. “Good luck trying to get a
goat or a sheep to spend the night in your house.”
At the heart of the debate is the heart of our relationship with
cats. Sure, they were gods in ancient Egypt, but ever since a paranoid
pope linked them to witchcraft in the 13th century, felines
have been vilified as evil, unpredictable, and untrustworthy—stereotypes
that persist even in this age of the adorable Internet cat video. So
the question must be asked: Are cats just like dogs but in slinkier
form, eager and able to be part of the human family? Or is there
something truly feral about them—something wild and unknowable that will
forever keep them from blending into our tribe? Put another way, are
cats with us or against us?
A cat ready for adoption in 2013 in Bali, Indonesia.
Photo by Putu Sayoga/Getty Images
Even early legal scholars debated the question, as I discovered while writing Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship With Cats and Dogs,
which traces the journey of pets from wild animals to members of the
family. In 1894, a Baltimore man was arrested for stealing his
neighbor’s cat. But as the judge prepared to sentence him, Maryland’s
attorney general stepped in. “A cat,” he declared, “is not legal
property. … It is as much a wild animal, in a legal sense, as are its
relatives—the tiger and the wild-cat.” The judge was forced to let the
thief go. In the eyes of the law, a man who had stolen a cat had stolen
nothing at all.
In the early 1900s, however, as cats became more popular household
companions, the law changed its tune. At issue in a 1914 Maine state
Supreme Court case was whether a man was legally justified in shooting
his neighbor’s dog because it was chasing his cat. Under state law, the
shooter pointed out, a person could kill a dog that was “worrying,
wounding, or killing any domestic animal.” But did a cat fit that
definition? After much deliberation, the court ruled that it did. “In no
other animal has affection for the home been more strongly developed,”
it decreed. “The cat is a domestic animal.”
Yet scientists remained divided. Part of the problem is that they
don’t agree on what “domesticated” means. For some, it’s as simple as
being tame and able to live with people generation after generation,
criteria under which cats easily qualify. But others propose more
stringent standards: complex genetic and behavioral changes that
transform a creature inside out. Do cats meet that bar?
Wes Warren thinks they don’t. Warren, a biologist at Washington
University in St. Louis and the senior author of last year’s cat genome
study, starts with docility. Yes, he says, there are cuddly cats, but
there are also a lot of skittish and aggressive cats—a wider spectrum of
behaviors than seen in dogs. He also faults felines for being too
independent. “Cats only come to you for affection when they feel like
it,” he says. “They pretty much take care of themselves.” After all, if
an animal doesn’t need us, has it really been domesticated by us? (Maybe
not; scientists now believe that cats domesticated themselves.) And then there’s the fact that—to the chagrin of birders
and other wildlife enthusiasts—house cats hunt nearly as well as their
wild ancestors. “Dogs don’t have that ability,” says Warren. “It’s been
bred out of them.”
A rescued cat on Long Island, New York.
Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Warren says he sees these differences play out at the genetic level.
“When you look at the molecular signatures of domestication, there are
10 times more in dogs than in cats.” That’s probably because dogs have
been around humans a lot longer than cats—20,000 years longer, by some
estimates. Cats, Warren says, should really be thought of as a
subspecies of wildcat, while dogs are more like their own species.
Larson doesn’t buy it. For one thing, he says, felines can be every
bit as docile as their canine counterparts. “You will easily find cats
that are more affectionate than dogs, more seeking of human affection.”
He also notes that cats have undergone a remarkable behavioral
transformation since first entering human society. As opposed to their
ancestor, the wildcat, which the naturalist H.C. Brooke once described
as “probably the least amenable of all living creatures,” house cats are
“love sponges,” as Ernest Hemingway called them—purring balls of fur
more interested in curling up on your lap than in ripping your eyes out.
Scientists even suspect cats have evolved particular purrs and meows
that they use to communicate with human beings. (Their intelligence may
have evolved as well, though this is hard to prove because cats make terrible research subjects.)
A British shorthair cat.
Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty Images
As for the genetic signatures of domesticity, Larson chalks up the
differences between dogs and cats to the intense breeding of dogs that
has happened in the past 150 years, not to any fundamental differences
in domestication. All this talk of semidomestication, he says, simply
dredges up centuries-old stereotypes of cats as peculiar beings. “We
don’t like loners,” he says. “We see a lot more of ourselves in dogs.”
So are cats wild or domestic? Let me tell you one more story about
Jasper. Over Thanksgiving, our family (including our two cats) drove to
my wife’s parents’ house. My sister-in-law’s clan was there as well,
with her two boys, 2 and 5 years old. One morning, we were all hanging
out in the basement: my kids squealing as an electric train screeched
along a metal track, their cousins racing their bikes around the room,
and the adults shouting a conversation over the bedlam. Jasper sat on a
couch in the corner, stared at us calmly for a while, then fell asleep.
Cats are descended from some of the world’s most fearsome predators.
They can be aloof and mysterious, and when they go outside they blend
into the savage world around them, stalking, growling, and leaping—their
eyes wide, their ears back, their teeth bared. They are the kings of
their backyard jungles. Yet they give it all up to be with us—a loud,
erratic, and sometimes incomprehensible species. When they cross our
thresholds, the beast fades away. They tame us, and they are tamed by
us. Cats may have retained a bit of their wild ancestry, but they always
come home.
With his big eyes and sagging brows, a young gray tabby named Luhu is easily the saddest looking cat on the Internet. But the sorrowful feline was surprisingly not born with the prominent feature that has people buzzing all over the world. "Luhu had eye infections when he was two weeks [old]," Luhu's owner
Maggie Liu of Bejing told ABC News. "He got a pretty major operation on
his eyes at that time [and] the sequelae is affected by his vision, so
Luhu always opens his eyes pretty hard when he needs look at something."
Maggie Liu
PHOTO: Luhu was born August 12, 2012.
Born Aug. 12, 2012, Luhu's uniquely adorable look has racked up over 73,000 fans on his Instagram page, @lanlan731. Liu said that while she isn't surprised at how strangers take to Luhu's
special appearance, she was however, amazed at his celebrity status. "I put my cats pics on Instagram just for fun, actually," she added. "I
never [thought] about Luhu [getting] so popular like this."
Maggie Liu
PHOTO: Luhu has two brothers named Barher and Bardie.
Liu is also the owner of two other tabby cats, Barher and Bardie, who she said are very close to their brother Luhu. "They are all very friendly cats," she said. "[They] never fight each other."
As for more publicity, Liu said she only wishes to continue sharing Luhu's adventures on Instagram.
"I did not have any plans [for] my cats so far," she said. "I wish my cats keep healthy and live with me until they are gone."
Film-maker
Praveen Singh of Discovery Channel has captured the incredible
tolerance of the people to big cats in a documentary India’s Wandering
Lions.
The filmmaker took three years to capture on his camera, and on his notepad, this unique bond between humans and beasts.
The
programme will be aired on July 6 at 9pm. When asked as to why he chose
to document the Gir lion sanctuary, he told Mail Today: “We wanted to
bring to audiences this incredible story of lions and people living
together and incredibly, the lions seem to be thriving in this landscape
— a mix of forest, scrub patches, fields and farms.”
Disovery Channel’s India’s Wandering
Lions captures the tolerance of the people to the big cats living in
Gujarat’s Gir lion sanctuary
There are thousands who swear by the
lion in the Saurashtra region, where the king has by now acquired a
territory of 20,000 square km
He
added: “The central theme of the programme shows how people and lions
are living in close proximity with each other. For locals, lions are
part of their lives and they are happy to have them around.”
Praveen’s
engagement with the lions and the people who co-exist with them gives a
different perspective than what many environmentalists argue.
He
said: “To most people if they see a wild animal living amongst people,
they view it as conflict. However, the lions seem to be doing fine and
the people also accept the animals in their midst. The people are proud to have lions in their state and most know that the big cats are not going to attack unless provoked.
Praveen’s engagement with the lions
and the people who co-exist with them gives a different perspective than
what many environmentalists argue
"Many
farmers we spoke to said they don’t mind the lions in their fields or
mango orchards as that ensures deer and other herbivores cannot damage
the crops.”
As
regards conservation efforts, he said: “As per the latest census, there
are 500 Asiatic lions in Gujarat, with quite a large number far from
the Gir forests. "The
Asiatic lion population has shown a consistent increase over many years
and the credit for this must go to the forest department,
conservationists, biologists and locals who are tolerant to the presence
of lions.”
He
is not the only one. There are thousands who swear by the lion in the
Saurashtra region, where the king has by now acquired a territory of
20,000 mind-boggling square km.
This
reporter learnt it while riding pillion on a motorcycle driven by a
sturdy forest guard trundling through the dusty Gir forests. It
could be a bone-breaking ride for many but a daily grind for Ghulam
Mehmood. On the return journey with the only light beaming from his
two-wheeler, Ghulam suddenly stood up on his motorbike foot rest that
disbalanced the vehicle to scream: “Dekho sir, sher, dekhiye dekhiye.”
A
pride of lions with seven members was crossing the road. For someone
who hasn’t seen the lion beyond the confines of a zoo, it was the
experience of a lifetime. But what caught one’s eyes was Ghulam’s
excitement on seeing something he sees almost every day.
There
was a sudden swagger in his body that shook the bike and would have
thrown his pillion rider to the ground had he not held on strongly.
Ghulam’s
passion is not as much for his daily job that gives him a few hundred
rupees but his unflinching love for the wild cat. But he dislikes the
wild cat expression. For him, it is sher, the king of his region and his
life.
We like showing you adorable animals that need your help, like the red panda and the pangolin. This time, by special request from our Facebook page, we take a look at one of the cutest big cats: the snow leopard!
Snow leopards live in central and southern Asia, as far north as southern Siberia and as far south as northern India.
Wikimedia Commons
Hunting is no problem for the snow leopard. They’ve been
known to kill and eat animals as big as a horse! With jaws like this,
though, it’s not surprising.
Wikimedia Commons
The snow leopard used to be in the genus Uncia, but in 2008,
scientists decided to move them over to Panthera, with other cats like
lions, tigers and jaguars.
Land Rover-Our Planet/Flickr
The snow leopard is the national animal of Afghanistan and the “national heritage” animal of Pakistan. Such a dignified profile!
Eric Kirby/Flickr
The available habitat for the snow leopard is shrinking, due to increase grazing of livestock and climate change.
Wikimedia Commons
Snow leopards are endangered, partly because of their
tendency to prey on livestock, which doesn’t endear them to farmers of
the areas where they live. So to protect their animals, they’ve got to
shoot the leopards, or at least scare them off.
Unfortunately, leopards share a food source with humans. It’s a tricky, interconnected cycle.
Wikimedia Commons
The World Wildlife Federation is helping by
discouraging farmers and shepherds from killing the leopards by
offering local insurance plans, and working to find habitats for snow
leopards where they won’t get in the way of agriculture.
Tambako The Jaguar/Flickr
In fact, if you want to get involved with saving snow
leopards, you’ve got great timing! Government officials in the twelve
countries that have native snow leopards have declared 2015 the International Year of the Snow Leopard.
Tambako The Jaguar/Flickr
Look at their feet! They’re so big… and you know what they
say about big feet. “Big feet… better to walk on snow with, you
know, like a snowshoe.”
Tambako The Jaguar/Flickr
Snow leopards are also masters of the funny face as you can see here.
Eric Kilby/Flickr
Let’s make sure that leopards stick around and make funny faces for generations to come.
Potent cocktail: Has this cat been manipulating mice with its urine?
Cat v mouse: it is probably the most famous predator-prey pairing, enshrined in idioms and a well-known cartoon. And cats, it turns out, even have chemical warfare in their anti-mouse arsenal - contained in their urine.
Researchers
found that when very young mice were exposed to a chemical in cat
urine, they were less likely to avoid the scent of cats later in life. The findings were presented at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual meeting in Prague. The
researchers, from the AN Severtov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in
Moscow, had previously found that the compound - aptly named felinine -
causes pregnant mice to abort.
Dr Vera Voznessenskaya explained that mice have a physiological response to this cat-specific compound. Chemical-sensing
mouse neurons in the mouse's brain pick up the scent, triggering a
reaction which includes an increase in the levels of stress hormones. "It's something that has existed in cats and mice for thousands of years," said Dr Voznessenskaya.
This
new study revealed that baby mice exposed to the compound during a
"critical period" in their development would, as adults, react quite
differently to their arch enemy's smell. The team exposed
one-month-old mice to the chemical over two weeks. When they were tested
later for their reaction, they were much less likely to flee the same
scent.
The interaction between cats and mice has a long history
"Their physical sensitivity [to
the chemical] was actually actually much higher," Dr Voznessenskaya
explained. "More of their receptors detect the compound and they produce
higher levels of stress hormone."
Despite this though, mice
raised around the unmistakable scent of cat pee are less inclined to
show signs of fear, or to flee when they sniff it out. "You get a
higher response, but less behaviour," said Dr Voznessenskaya, "and
habituating like this is probably useful for the mice; they can't run
away, because they need to live around humans and food. And cats [also]
live around humans."
As for the cats: "They seem to be able to keep the number of mice around that they need," she added.
Cats may be adorable, but environmentalists argue they're also a scourge for wildlife Credit: Menna | Shutterstock.com
View full size image
Cats may be city slickers that rarely venture out into the wilderness, a new study suggests.
In fact, the new study shows that feral cats roam in urban and suburban
parks and yards, but they rarely set their paws down in wilder green
spaces.
The new finding is good news for wildlife, especially birds, in more
rural settings, said study author George Hess, an urban conservation
scientist at North Carolina State University.
"Protected areas that we put cameras out in had very few photos of
cats, the implication being that there are not a lot of cats in those
protected areas," Hess told Live Science. "Bird kills in those protected
areas should be lower."
Killer kitties
Cats have gotten a bad rap in recent years. The furry carnivores have
been implicated in wildlife killings: Researchers reported in 2013 that American cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds,
and more than 20 billion small mammals, each year. Most of those
killings are tied to feral cats, which don't have human owners, though
kitty cams have revealed outdoor domestic cats are also partaking in the carnage, that study found.
To better understand Felis catus, Hess and his colleagues,
along with hundreds of citizens in six Eastern states from Maryland to
Tennessee, deployed critter cams in yards, urban parks, protected wild
spaces and green corridors.
After analyzing millions of hours of footage, the team found that cats
tended to stick to urban and suburban settings: They were 300 times more
likely to pop up in residential yards than in parks.
In addition, cats were scarce in areas where coyotes roamed. The more
coyotes that prowled an area, the fewer kitties ventured there,
according to the study, which was published today (June 30) in the
Journal of Mammalogy. The one exception was that coyotes were
occasionally found in urban corridors that were connected to larger
green spaces, said study co-author William McShea, a wildlife ecologist
at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia.
"Coyotes
have such a bad reputation," McShea told Live Science. "There are still
bounties in some states for removing coyotes as varmints."
Bigger kid on the block
The new findings, however, suggest coyotes play a positive role in
keeping cats at bay in wilder spaces, McShea said. Coyotes are the "big
kid on the block" and are aggressive toward cats, which may cause cats
to stay off coyote turf, he added.
But although coyotes may be preying on kitties, or simply leaving their
scent behind to keep cats away, it's also possible that cats and
coyotes have different prowling grounds for unrelated reasons, Hess
said. Cats may simply stick close to human habitation because people
still provide them with food, he said.
When coyotes prowl wilder areas, it's better for birds, Hess said.
Though coyotes do catch and eat some feathered creatures, coyotes aren't
stalking and pouncing experts like cats are, McShea said.
Coyotes are "just too big and clumsy to get the birds that cats can," McShea said.
Putting cameras on both wild cats and coyotes could provide a better
picture of how the two species interact, Hess said. And to really
understand cats' impact on wildlife, researchers should catalog the bird
species that cats capture, Hess said. Killing endangered or threatened birds would be much more damaging to the ecosystem than preying upon urban pests, such as invasive species like cardinals, he said.
New research technique assigns
ages to Smilodon fatalis developmental events, shows rapid canine growth
but overall delayed dental maturity
Date:
July 1, 2015
Source:
American Museum of Natural History
Summary:
The fearsome teeth of the saber-toothed cat
Smilodon fatalis fully emerged at a later age than those of modern big
cats, but grew at a rate about double that of their living relatives.
The findings, for the first time, provide specific ages for
developmental dental events in Smilodon. The eruption rate of the cat's
permanent upper canines was a speedy six millimeters per month, but the
teeth weren't fully developed until three years of age.
This fossilized jaw of an adult Smilodon fatalis shows the fully erupted canine.
Credit: Copyright AMNH/J. Tseng
New research shows that the fearsome teeth of the saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis
fully emerged at a later age than those of modern big cats, but grew at
a rate about double that of their living relatives. The findings,
published today in the journal PLOS ONE and based on a new
technique that combines isotopic analysis and x-ray imaging, for the
first time provide specific ages for developmental events in Smilodon, notably in their teeth. The study estimates that the eruption rate of S. fatalis's
permanent upper canines was 6 millimeters per month--double the growth
rate of an African lion's teeth. But the extinct cat's dagger-like
canines weren't fully developed until about three years of age.
"For predators such as big cats, an important determinant of an
individual's full hunting ability is the time required to grow their
weapons--their teeth," said Z. Jack Tseng, a National Science Foundation
and Frick Postdoctoral Fellow in the American Museum of Natural
History's Division of Paleontology and a coauthor on the new paper.
"This is especially crucial for understanding sabertoothed predators
such as Smilodon."
S. fatalis lived in North and South America until going
extinct about 10,000 years ago. About the size of a modern tiger or lion
but more solidly built, the cats are famous for their protruding
canines, which could grow to be 18 centimeters (about 7 inches) long.
Although well-preserved fossils of S. fatalis are available to
researchers, very little is known about the absolute ages at which the
animals reached key developmental stages.
"Timing of development is critical for many aspects of vertebrate
ecology and evolution," said Robert Feranec, curator of Pleistocene
vertebrate paleontology at the New York State Museum and the
corresponding author on the paper. "Changes in the timing of
life-history events can have major effects on an organism's adult
features and final appearance. For extinct species, we can usually only
determine the relative sequence of developmental events. This technique
will permit the determination of absolute developmental age not only for
Smilodon, but other extinct species."
Using S. fatalis specimens recovered from the La Brea Tar
Pits in Los Angeles, Feranec, Tseng, and colleagues from Clemson
University and the Neural Stem Cell Institute combined data from stable
oxygen isotope analyses and micro-computed tomography (μCT) to establish
the eruption rate for the saber-toothed cat's permanent upper canines.
At 6 millimeters per month, the calculated eruption rate is speedy--for
comparison, human fingernails grow at about 3.4 millimeters per month.
By using the eruption rate to calibrate a previously published
tooth-replacement sequence for the saber-toothed cat, the researchers
calculated the timing of various growth events in absolute units
(months), as opposed to the relative timing used in all previous
research on this animal.
S. fatalis, like many other mammals, had two sets of teeth
in its lifetime, and the first stopped erupting when the cub was about
one-and-a-half years old. Toward the end of the eruption of the baby
teeth, the permanent teeth started to erupt, with about an 11-month
period where both sets of saber teeth could be seen inside of a cub's
mouth.
As in human babies, the cubs of S. fatalis had loosely
fitted pieces of bones in their skulls that fuse over time. The two
parietal bones at the back of the cats' skulls were where their main jaw
muscles attached, making the bones' fusion a necessity for supporting
forces that enable them to eat larger chunks of meat or hunt larger
prey. In S. fatalis, parietal bone fusion happened when the
cubs were between one and one-and-a-half years old, about eight months
earlier than is seen in modern lions. The timing coincides with the full
eruption of the baby canines.
"This means that the jaw muscles of these cubs were anatomically
ready to be used in hunting early on with their loaner set of sabers,"
Tseng said.
After about 20 months, the cats shed their baby canines, and the
permanent ones continued to grow until the animals were between three to
three-and-a-half years old, later than seen in modern large cats like
tigers, leopards, and lions, but not as late as might be expected, the
researchers said."Despite having canine crown heights that were more than twice those of the lion, Smilodon
didn't require twice as much time to develop its canines," said
Aleksander Wysocki, a graduate student at Clemson University and lead
author on the paper.
Based on the results, young cats--less than 4-7 months old--are
extremely rare in the vast collections from the La Brea Tar Pits.
"Considering the abundance of predators at Rancho La Brea, younger
cubs would have been at risk of being preyed upon themselves if they
attempted to feed on the animals trapped within the tar pits," Wysocki
said. "The cubs probably remained hidden or at den sites while the
adults pursued prey trapped in the tar pits and never made it back out."
The researchers say that the technique they demonstrate in the paper
could be applied to a variety of extinct species to better understand
the manner and rate by which different animals grew, for example, by
looking at the tusks of extinct elephants or marine mammals.
Wysocki MA, Feranec RS, Tseng ZJ, Bjornsson CS. Using a
Novel Absolute Ontogenetic Age Determination Technique to Calculate the
Timing of Tooth Eruption in the Saber-Toothed Cat, Smilodon fatalis. PLoS ONE, 2015 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129847
American
Museum of Natural History. "Dagger-like canines of saber-toothed cats
took years to grow: New research technique assigns ages to Smilodon
fatalis developmental events, shows rapid canine growth but overall
delayed dental maturity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 July 2015.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150701151821.htm>.
From
top: Jungle cat with kittens; Black-naped hare; Mouse deer; Rusty
spotted cat; Palm civet; BIG CITY CAT: A leopard captured on camera with
the eastern suburbs in background
Camera-trap survey finds 35 leopards and a host of hard to find species in Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
The first detailed study of leopards in Sanjay Gandhi National Park,
conducted by Nikit Surve, a researcher from the Wildlife Institute of
India, has revealed that 35 of the big cats range inside its boundary.
The survey, which involved extensive use of camera traps, has unearthed
evidence of several species that are very rarely spotted in the park.
"This study was conducted between December 2014 and April 2015. The aim
was to estimate the population density of the leopard as well as its
wild and domestic prey, and determine food habits of the cats," said
Chief Conservator of Forest and the Field Director for SGNP, Vikas
Gupta. "We now have a visual record of 35 leopards in an area of 140 sq
km; including Yeoor and Aarey forest. This data will help us keep track
of the leopards and catalogue deaths as they occur."
Gupta said
the camera traps - 45 in all - also captured images of elusive mammals
like the rusty spotted cat, jungle cats, black-naped hare and mouse
deer.
"This goes to show how so many species of rare animals
find a home in a forest located in middle of Mumbai," said naturalist
Anand Pendharkar. "This should propel people to fight to save forest
areas of SGNP, Yeoor and Aarey."
The study also accentuated the
friction produced by the proximity between humans and animals. "There
is abundant wild prey inside the park but leopards don't understand
boundaries and with a good number of dogs present in the vicinity, they
hunt them as they don't present too much of a challenge," said Surve.
"We found that the density of dogs was 17 per sq km along the periphery
of the park, which is high." According to the study, dogs constitute 24
per cent of the leopard's prey base while the park's wild population
accounts for 57 per cent of its diet.
Surve and his team rigged
up the cameras at 5 pm every day and retrieved them at 7 am the next
day; each was installed along trails frequented by the cats. "The camera
was placed at a leopard's knee level and as soon as the animal passed a
trap, heat and motion detectors caused it to capture an image," he
said. "Some leopards loved the cameras and would actively set them off.
Some others were shy; they would strike at the devices."
This camera trap image of a cat with a mouse in its mouth was one
of millions collected by students and citizen scientists for the study.
Credit: Roland Kays, North Carolina State University
Domestic cats might be determined hunters, but they stick mostly
to residential areas instead of venturing into parks and protected
areas where coyotes roam. That's the key finding from a North Carolina
State University analysis of more than 2,100 sites - the first
large-scale study of free-ranging cats in the U.S. published in the Journal of Mammalogy.
Why is it important to know where 74 million pet cats spend their time away from home?
"Domestic cats are estimated to kill billions of birds and small
mammals each year," says lead author Roland Kays, a zoologist with NC
State's College of Natural Resources and the N.C. Museum of Natural
Sciences. "Knowing where they hunt helps assess the risk to wildlife."
Kays and his colleagues used camera trap data collected by hundreds
of students and citizen scientists in six Eastern states. They analyzed
millions of images data from motion-sensitive cameras located in 32
protected sites and the urban neighborhoods of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Cats were concentrated in residential areas and small urban forests, such as those along Raleigh's greenway trails.
"We detected cats 300 times more often in residential yards, where coyotes are rare, than in parks," Kays says.
The more coyotes in an area, the less likely cats were to venture
nearby. The one area where both cats and coyotes overlapped was small
urban woodlots.
"Most parks had no cats
at all," Kays says. "Our cameras photographed a single cat at some
parks, but we only found evidence for more than one cat in two of the 32
parks we surveyed."
Another interesting finding: Cats that did venture into nature
preserves kept the same nocturnal schedule as coyotes, while those in
residential areas were diurnal.
The study is part of the eMammal project, which enables citizen scientists to collaborate with researchers at the Smithsonian Institution and NC State University to document animal activity.
Yes,
that’s right. Cats do not like being stroked at the base of their tail
-- at least, that was the case for most of the 54 cats in this study, and another, smaller study on the topic. That’s sort of a cat erogenous zone, and petting may overstimulate it, the researchers posit.
The
cats’ favorite place to be pet: Their faces, especially around their
lips, chins and cheeks, where they have scent glands. (The researchers
did not attempt to pet the cats on their bellies, presumably because
they didn’t want to be maimed.)
Interestingly,
it doesn't seem to matter what order you pet the parts of your cat.
That suggests that cats see petting as akin to grooming, which happens
haphazardly between two friendly cats, rather than allo-rubbing, which always goes from tip to tail.
