Serval Cats

Water colour painting

The Serval cat, an animal about twice the size of a large domestic cat is distributed widely throughout Africa. They have unusually long legs, small heads, very large ears and short tails. Their coats are a yellowish sandy coulor with buff to off white underparts.

They have black spots on their bodies that in certain parts merge into stripes. Adult Serval cats can weigh between 8 and 20 kg's and grow to 3 feet long and stand 24 inches at the shoulder with the female slightly smaller than the male.

Wild Servals are more common on the open savannas in tall grass near wetlands or rivers. Their large ears can apparently hear the slight motion of a rodent up to 20 feet away. Their characteristic pouncing in the long grass allows them to also target birds in flight and have been recorded leaping 10 to 15 feet straight up and pluck a bird in flight out of the air.

These mainly nocturnal, terrestrial cats are also good climbers and are equally comfortable in water fishing for a meal. Their amazing adaptability has aided the survival of an animal that was once hunted for it beautiful coat.

Serval cats have long been held in captivity as domestic cats dating back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians. More recently they have been bred in Europe and the USA.

So for all you cat lovers looking for the ultimate exotic cat, Servals although still a wild cat can
make a good human companion.

Before the Hunt

The Lion (Panthera leo)is the second largest living cat after the tiger. Large males can weigh in excess of 250 kg. This apex predator of the African continent typically roams the grassland and savannas but are not uncommon in bush and forest areas.

These social cats live in prides that vary in number, made up of relatives, consisting of females, cubs and a few young males. They can live for between 10 and 14 years in the wild.

The lionesses hunt in groups and can reach speeds of nearly 60 kilometers per hour for short bursts, which means they have to stalk their prey to get fairly close before launching their attack. Male lions don't normally participate in the hunt unless the pride is hunting large prey like giraffe or buffalo.

Bachelor males evicted from prides generally hunt their own prey and have been observed to hunt as a team. The male lions primary function within the pride is to protect their territory which can be as large as 100 square miles of grassland scrub and open woodlands.

Unlike the endangered Asiatic lion, the African lion is considered a vulnerable species, with numbers declining by between 30% and 50% in the last two decades. They once roamed most of Africa and parts of Asia and Europe. Today they are only found in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and a very small population in India's Gir Forest.

Game farms and reserves are a favourite attraction for most tourists who visit Africa and it would be a tragedy if these majestic animals could no longer be observed in the wild by future generations.

This water colour depicts a lion and lioness at dusk and I have called the painting "Before the Hunt"