Caracal

The Cat Survival Trust

The Caracal

Felis (Caracal) caracal Gray

Photo: Terry Moore

Contents
	Description Distribution Diet Behaviour Reproduction Conservation Status Captive Breeding and Caracals in Captivity Further Reading

Description

Because of its short tail and prominent ear tufts, the caracal is often called the desert lynx but it is not closely related to the lynxes. Smaller than a true lynx, the caracal is about the size of a labrador dog. It has a long slender body and long legs. Hind legs are notably longer than the forelegs. Compared to the similarly sized serval, the legs are moderately long and stout. The tail tapers sharply at the tip, and is considerably longer than those of the lynxes.
Caracals have a pronounced sexual size dimorphism; females are significantly smaller than the males.
The anterior upper premolar is absent.
The distinctive ears provide the caracal with its name, an anglicised version of the Turkish “Garahgulak” which means “black-ear”. They are narrow and pointed, black on the outside, tipped with black tufts. These tufts are longer than those of any other cat, and have been measured at 4.5 cm. It has been reported that the tufts help the caracal to pinpoint sounds. Invariably there are white hairs mixed with the black ear fur and they can appear to be silvery rather than black. Kitten’s ears are all black.
The pelage of the caracal is dense and relatively short, a uniform reddish-brown in colour. This varies from individual to individual and it can be quite long and soft and very red. The chin, throat and belly are white. A ring of white surrounds the eyes, and there are small black marks above the anterior corners of the eyes. Narrow black lines run from the eye to the nose. The tail is reddish brown above and pale sandy below.
All black or melanistic specimens have been recorded. Mendelssohn (1989) describes a dark colour form, which appears to be grey. The kittens of these animals are almost black.
Caracals have been classified in the same genus as lynx (Lynx) and also with the other small cats (Felis). Wozencraft (1993) elevated the caracal to its own unique genus in the most recent review of cat taxonomy.
There are nine recognised subspecies of caracal:

F. (C.) c. caracal	Sudan to Cape Province
F. (C.) c. algira	North Africa
F. (C.) c. damarensis	Damaraland, Namibia
F. (C.) c. limpopoensis	North Transvaal and Botswana
F. (C.) c. lucani	Gabon
F. (C.) c. michaelis	Turkmenistan
F. (C.) c. nubicus	Sudan and Ethiopia
F. (C.) c. poecilictis	Niger and Nigeria, West Africa
F. (C.) c. schmitzi	Central India to Arabia

Law et al. (1987) state that the Israeli and Indian populations are classified as the same subspecies (F. (C.) c. schmitzi), but are very different in appearance. Definitions of the subspecies of many animals are the subject of much debate.

Principal Dimensions

	Overall	Males	Females
Head and body lengths (cm)	60-105	80-105	60-92
Height at shoulder (cm)	40-50
Tail lengths (cm)	20-35	20-35	21-30
Weights (Kg)	11-20	13-20	11-15

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Distribution and Habitats

Found over all of Africa except the sand deserts and the equatorial rain forests the caracal is particularly common in South Africa. Widely distributed from the Arabian and Sinai Peninsulas (not in the interior sandy deserts), Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and Turkey through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and south to the Punjab and central India. Animals of essentially dry areas, caracals are found in woodlands, savannahs, hilly steppes, and acacia scrubland.
They overlap in distribution with the similar-sized, but less robust servals. Competition is avoided because caracals hunt in more open drier habitats, and they tend to specialise in different prey. Law et al. (1987) speculate that caracals may be replacing servals where they have been hunted out in the Cape Province of South Africa. Prey populations will be unexploited and caracals may able to take advantage of them.
The map shows the present distribution of caracals in grey.
The map are based on information in the Wild Cats Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan published by the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group in 1996. See our Books page for more details.

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Diet

Caracal prey consist of guinea fowl, desert partridges, hedgehogs, rodents, mongoose, duikers, dik-diks, mountain reedbuck, fawns of impala, bush-buck and other antelopes like greater kudus.
Caracals take roosting tawny and martial eagles. Lizards are often eaten and a tame caracal was observed to kill and eat a cobra. They will eat sheep, carefully ignoring the viscera, larger bones and skin.
Rock hyraxes are killed very frequently and remains were found in 53% of 200 scats which were examined. Vegetable matter and insect remains have also been found in caracal faeces. Grapes and green grass have been seen inside their stomachs.

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Behaviour

Caracals are said to be nocturnal but they are often seen during the day. In colder areas they are more diurnal. They will rest in dense vegetation or a natural rock crevice. Social behaviour is limited to courtship and mating.
Females require no help from the males to rear their offspring, which will be driven off as soon as they are old enough. Their distinctive and contrasting ears are used to accentuate facial expressions, an “ear-flick” is used as a mild threat gesture. Good climbers, they take to trees when pursued by dogs. Kills are sometimes dragged up into the fork of a tree where the carcass can be devoured at leisure. Described as fierce, they have been observed to drive away hyaenas.
Male caracals have overlapping home ranges which are larger than those of females. Weisbein and Mendelssohn (1990) measured male home ranges as 220 km² on average, ranging from 98 to 352 km². Female home ranges varied from 2 to 112 km² and averaged 57 km². They overlapped by about 27% (males’ by 50%).
Female ranges generally exclude others so that they can rear their offspring.
Old caracals lose their defended areas to younger more vigorous individuals and are forced to wander.
Reputed to be extremely fast runners, caracals are the fastest cats of their size. They often make vertical leaps several feet high in pursuit of birds, to knock them down.
The phrase “To put the cat among the pigeons” refers to the caracal. Wagers were placed by the Indian Moghuls on the cats, as they were released into tame pigeon flocks, the object was to see how many they could disable.
Marco Polo reported that the Grand Khan of Cathay used them to hunt. Apparently easy to train, caracals were used to hunt hares, crows, cranes, peafowl and even kites.
Caracals use the big cat technique of a throat bite to kill mountain reedbuck. These antelopes are about twice the size of a caracal (25-30 kg), and form an important part of their diet. In one study, mountain reedbuck were found in 20% of caracal scats, making 70% of their mass. Small cats usually hunt prey smaller than themselves and therefore do not need to use the throat bite to subdue a larger animal.

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Reproduction

Usually two or three, but occasionally up to six, kittens are born in an old porcupine or aardvark burrow, under a bush or in a rock crevice. Caracals do not seem to have a particular mating season; in South Africa the kittens are mainly born in July and August; in Zimbabwe, September and December. Copulation occurs over six days. A female will copulate with a number of males in apparent order of size, body weight and age. Gestation lasts for 61 to 79 days, and the kittens may remain with their mothers for about a year. In 45 days the kittens start to eat meat regularly and they will be weaned in four to six months.
Their eyes take about a week to open and they are first able to walk after nine days. Female caracals become sexually mature by 21 months. When the offspring leave the maternal ranges, males may migrate over 90 km away, and females will usually stay in their mother’s vicinity. Caracals have lived for 18 years in captivity.

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Conservation Status

The most northerly subspecies F. (C.) c. michaelis is classified as Rare by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The African races are not listed as threatened. Caracals seem to be increasingly common further south of the equator, but Mendelsshon (1989) states that they are relatively numerous in the south of Israel and are not endangered. In southern Africa, caracals are sufficiently numerous to be considered to be a serious hazard to livestock. They are classified as problem animals with no legal protection in South Africa and Namibia (The Cats of Southern Africa. Cat News 12, 1990, p. 24). Control levels are quite heavy, but they do not seem to be significantly influencing the caracal populations, which seem to be increasing (Caracal in Africa. Cat News 4, 1986, p. 9-10).
Twenty adult caracal skins are used to make a fur coat. Caracal pelts have a relatively low human value so the development of large-scale trading seems to be highly unlikely. The Convention on International trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has prohibited all international commerce in products from the Asian caracal population (Appendix I), and strictly limited trade in the other populations (Appendix II) (Conservation and Legal Status of Wild Cats. Cat News 12, 1990, p,26).
Caracals in India are substantially gaining from the protected areas which have been set aside for tiger conservation. A wide geographical distribution which is not in any real danger, indicates that the future of the caracal is likely to be reasonably optimistic.

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Captive Breeding and Caracals in Captivity

Studbook Keeper

Diane Versteeg
Living Desert
Palm Desert
CA 92260, USA

A captive breeding programme needs to have regard to keeping separate the various subspecies, while at the same time avoiding the dangers of inbreeding.
This is achieved by the maintenance of a studbook which is used to select suitable breeding partners for captive animals. Such studbooks are maintained on a voluntary basis by dedicated individuals or teams at various zoos around the world.

Zoos which have caracals