🐾 Serval

Serval

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Who it is

• Scientific name: Leptailurus serval
• Family & relatives: A medium African cat that is closely related to the caracal and the African golden cat.
• How to spot it: Recognize it by its slender build, golden coat with black spots and bars, huge oval ears, and a short tail.

Its body & abilities

• Size: About 60 to 100 cm long in the body and standing up to around 60 cm at the shoulder.
• Weight: Typically weighs 9 to 18 kg.
• Body & adaptations: It has the longest legs relative to body size of any cat and very large ears that pinpoint prey by sound.
• Top speed: Can run about 80 km/h in short bursts.
• Strength: It can leap over 2 to 3 meters high to pounce straight down onto hidden prey.
• Senses: Its enormous ears give it exceptional hearing, letting it detect rodents moving underground or in tall grass.
• Growing up: Kittens are born in dense cover, are weaned by a few months, and become independent before their first year.

Where it lives

• Habitat: Favors wetlands, grasslands, and savannas near water where tall grass hides its prey.
• Where in the world: Widespread across sub-Saharan Africa, with a small population in Morocco.
• Territory: Holds a home range of roughly 10 to 30 square kilometers, marked with scent.

What it eats

• Diet: A carnivore that gains much of its water from prey but drinks when water is available.
• Favorite foods: Eats mostly rodents, plus birds, frogs, insects, and reptiles.
• How it hunts: Listens for prey with its big ears, then leaps high and slams down with its front paws.

How it behaves

• How it moves: A graceful runner and remarkable high-jumper, well built for pouncing.
• When it is active: Active mainly at dawn, dusk, and night, but sometimes hunts by day.
• Family life: Solitary, coming together only to mate.
• How it talks: Uses high-pitched calls, purrs, growls, and scent marking to communicate.
• Babies: After about 65 to 75 days of gestation, the female gives birth to usually two or three kittens that she rears alone.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: An important rodent controller in African grasslands; kittens may be taken by leopards, hyenas, and large birds of prey.
• Conservation: Listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, though threatened locally by grassland loss and the pet and skin trade.
• Dangers: Dies mainly from habitat loss, road accidents, and hunting for skin or as a perceived pest.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: Lives around 10 years in the wild and up to about 20 years in captivity.
• In our culture: Ancient Egyptians depicted servals in art, and their spotted pelts were once prized for ceremonial cloaks.
• Where to see it: Often seen on safari in Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater, and in many zoos worldwide.
• Fun fact: A serval catches its prey on roughly half of its pounces, one of the best hunting success rates of any cat.