A Myth Got Busted After A New Species Of Wild Cat Discovered In Corsica, Meet The Cat-Fox
9Since when, they are on the island?
It is believed that these cats were bought on the island by humans only, sometime around 8,000 years back in order to control the pests such as rat. However, the wildlife officers caught first cat-fox in the year 2016. Since that time, nearly 16 cat-fox have been sighted, out of which 12 have been caught and left after tagging with electric chips which are helpful in locating their location and activities.
One of them is a male cat-fox which has one golden eye while another eye is brown which may be result of an injury that it may have got after a fight with another cat or animal.
Image Source: foxnews.com
10What the rangers hope?
The rangers and the wildlife officers hope to catch, study and tag these wild cats so that they can be identified and more knowledge is obtained about them. This will also help them in protecting these wild cats and we may get to see increase in their numbers in the future.
Image Source: www.sciencealert.com
11Physical structure of cat-fox:
These wild cats look similar a lot to domestic cats, on an average from head to tail they measure around 90 centimeters. Their ears are wide while they have short whiskers but highly developed teeth. There are stripes on their front legs while the hind legs are pretty dark.
Image Source: cloudinary.com
12What earned them the name of cat-fox?
They have a dense and silky coat which also helps in repelling lice, fleas and ticks while their tail mostly has 2-4 rings and the tip is usually black. As per Pierre, these cats got the name of cat-fox because of their size and their tail.
Image Source: wideopenpets.com
13This is what a field agent said:
As per an ONCFS field agent, Carlu-Antone Cecchini, these cats prefer to live in remote places where there is enough water and forest cover which is helpful in giving them protection against the golden eagle. The golden eagle is the main predator of these wild cats.
Image Source: iflscience.com
