Trivia question for Mar-18-2011

Carter picked a cute one today, but its not what you might first think it is.  These guys are prodigious hunters that readily climb trees and even swim in rivers to catch their elusive prey.

Unusual among cats, these guys have been observed to stand up on their hind legs to scan the surrounding landscape, using their tail as a support. A similar posture is seen in meerkats and prairie dogs, but not generally in other felines.

In 1981, 70,000 of its skins were exported to Germany alone.  Although it appears to be plentiful in central regions, including Bolivia, where it is the second most common cat after the ocelot, it is considered to be endangered in regions such as southern Chile. The IUCN currently lists the species as “Near Threatened” because of the concern over habitat conversion in many countries in the cat’s range.

So here are Carter’s questions:  Tell us what this cat is and where they can be found.  Also tell us how they got their name.

Good Luck 😉

Answer:

Congratulations to our friend Nonie, she got everything right and was first to respond.  The little kitty we featured is the Geoffrey’s Cat.  Geoffroy’s Cat is a wild cat in the southern and central regions of South America. It is the about the size of a domestic cat. While the species is relatively common in many areas, it is considered to be “Near Threatened” by IUCN because of concern over land-use changes in the regions where it lives.

Geoffroy’s Cat is named after the 19th century French zoologist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844). Following his travels to South America in the early 19th century, Saint-Hilaire studied the cat while a professor of zoology in Paris, and identified five subspecies, based on geographic disbursement.  Here is more on these little cats: Geoffroy’s Cat

Thanks for playing along 😉