Felids

Question 1

What are miacoids?

Answer 1

Small, superficially marten like or civet like with long, little bodies and long tails

Some of arboreal, while others live on the ground

Question 2

Miacoids

Answer 2

Extinct primitive, carnivoramorphants that lived during the palocere and Eocene epochs, about 62 to 33 million years ago

Question 3

What is the cat gap?

Answer 3

A period in the fossil records, about 25 to 18.5 million years ago, in which there were few fossil of cats or cat like species found in North America

This cause it’s disputed put may have been caused by changes in climate , changes in the habitat or ecosystem, the increasingly hyper carnivorous tendencies of cats, or a period of extinction is called van den hammen cycles

Question 4

Pseudaclurus

Answer 4

Is a prehistoric cat that lived in Europe, Asia and North America in the Miocene between approximately 20 to 8,000,000 years ago. It is an ancestor of today’s felines, as well as the extinct sabertooth

It originated from Eurasia and was the first file to reach North America when it entered the continent, which ended the cat gap

Question 5

Social spectrum-spotted hyena

Answer 5

Lives in complex hierarchical organised groups containing up to 90 individuals

Question 6

Social structure- striped hyena

Answer 6

Live solitary or in pairs or sometimes in small groups, up to 7 individuals

Question 7

Social structure- brown hyena

Answer 7

Lives in groups of up to 14 individuals

Question 8

Social structure- aardwolf

Answer 8

Is solitary during the non-breeding season and forms monogamous pairs during the breeding season

Question 9

Brain size between these four species

Answer 9

The largest brain volume relative to body size is found in spotted hyena

They possess a larger, anterior cerebrum volume relative to total brain volume that is found in of a hyena species- this region is composed, primarily of frontal cortex

The expansion of the frontal cortex is driven by the demands and processing, cognitive information associated with complex social structure

However, brain size may also influence other factors of behavioural ecology

Question 10

Hunting behaviour in felids

Answer 10

Carnivore foraging behaviour is suited for hunting in specific vegetative cover types, and therefore largely stereotypical with taxonomic families

Fields typically use dense cover to stalk ambush pray , whereas canids do not make use of vegetation when hunting

Question 11

Lynx vs coyotes

Answer 11

Lynx chased has more frequently in sparce spruce canopies then coyotes, whereas coyotes chased hares more often in dense spruce than lynx

Lynx initiated chases by stalking in sparce spruce and by ambushing from dense spruce. Vegetative cover did not affect lynx hunting success, but lynx did have a higher success when ambush in the stalking hares

Question 12

Sexual dimorphism

Answer 12

Meeting systems and space often interrelated

For solitary carnivores, such as the bobcat , space you should be predictable.

Home ranges should not overlap- female should be most influenced by resource distribution and abundance. Where males should be influenced by female spatial dynamics.

Question 13

Home regions in bobcats

Answer 13

Factor known to influence home region size in bobcats include pray abundance, time in residence, population, density, and habitat quality

Despite vast differences in regional home ranges , the findings indicate that male home ranges, increase proportionately with female home ranges

Question 14

What is the normalised difference, vegetation index?

Answer 14

Calculated using fluorescent reflectance reading and is used to assess the productiveness of an area

Question 15

NDVI and HR

Answer 15

I alongside the relationship between the home ranges size there was a weak negative correlation between the home ranges size and the NDVI of the range

The home ranges size of a male and bobcat females are related

There is a correlation between NDVI and HR size (particularly for females)

Question 16

Sociality

Answer 16

The degree to which individuals in animal populations tend to associate in social groups and form cooperative societies.

Sociality is a survival response to the evolutionary pressures

For example, when a mother says near her young in the nest , predators or parasites are less likely to eat/prey on the young

Question 17

The domestic cat

Answer 17

Can form interspecific relationships with humans and other domestic species

They can also form stable, cooperative, intraspecific, social groups

Question 18

Intraspecific social behaviour history

Answer 18

There is no evidence for intraspecific social behaviours in cat, ancestral species. Hence, the capacity for group formation, almost certainly evolved concurrently with the self domestication of the cat.

Most species are solitary, even within those species, there are evidently capable of group living, such groups only form where there is a sufficient concentration of food

Question 19

Cheetahs and social structures

Answer 19

The females live alone, or with dependent cubs and litter remain together for six months after leaving the mother, whereas the females disperse the male siblings either remain together in permanent groups or live alone

The Cubs suffer very high mortality - only 36% of cubs leave the lair at two months and only 5% reach independence at 18 months, mainly due to their predation by lions accounts, nearly 75% of known cub mortality

Question 20

Adolescents cheetahs

Answer 20

Had a higher chance of survival if they were in litters with at least one sibling, chiefly because of reduced probation of lions, but also because they were able to offset some of the costs of group livin’ by capturing larger pray

Question 21

Male competition in cheetahs

Answer 21

Male competition over territories is intense, so the superior fighting ability of coalitions enables them to compete for and take over occupied territories, whereas singletons I left to occupy vacancies, or are forced to take on a floating lifestyle

Males in coalitions had higher survival, then singletons when more coalitions were in the study area- when the number of coalitions is high, increased competition, prevent singletons from taking up territories and reduces the chances of survival

Question 22

Male groups in cheetahs

Answer 22

All male groups are uncommon in mammals, probably because male reproduction, success is related to intrasexual competition- such groups are particularly unusual when they are permanent and long-lasting

Question 23

Solitary in lions

Answer 23

The African lion exhibits the most complex sociality known in the felidae

Male siblings remain in groups that compete for females but females also live in kingship groups known as ‘prides’

Group of males may associate with one or several of these prides of females

Question 24

Group living in lions

Answer 24

Originally thought to be based on communal hunting- but even when the prey item is large, kills are often made by one lion then shared with one members of the group

The advantage of group living appears to be the ability to defend high-quality territories that contain reliable and abundant supplies of prey

Question 25

Female and male prides in lions

Answer 25

The association between female prides and groups of males is rarely permanent- male coalitions challenge one another for ‘ownership’ of a pride and, when successful, they may either kill or evict the offspring sired by the previous group of males

Question 26

Sociality in females

Answer 26

Socialite among the females in a pride does not follow the pattern seen in most other social Carnivora, in which one or a small number of dominant females produce offspring

By contrast, female pridemates do not harass one another or display assertive behaviour during social interactions- all adult females breed: each leaves the pride to give birth and hides them away from the pride for the first 6 weeks of life

Question 27

Packer (2001) lions

Answer 27

Suggest this ‘egalitarianism’ may be due to the high risk of confrontation andthe knock - on advantage to the more peaceful individuals

When feeding, females rarely challenge one another, or younger lions, at a carcass, giving way to the individual that has already started feeding

However, males routinely displace females and younger individuals of both sexes

Question 28

Five subspecies of wildcat

Answer 28

European wildcat
Arabian or North African wildcat
Southern African wildcat
Indian desert cat
Chinese desert cat

Question 29

The Arabian wildcat

Answer 29

Generally recorded as nocturnal, territorial and solitary

There is one citation of these wildcats hunting near to each other in apparently coordinated manner- these may be mothers teaching their kittens now to hunt

Question 30

Group living in present day

Answer 30

Sociality among todays pet cats is generally strongly constrained by the preferences and interventions ot their owners, including the selection of individuals to cohabit either in the same or adjacent houses and the increasingly widespread habit of neutering au adult cats ofboth sixes

Question 31

Feral cats and social structure

Answer 31

Feral cats can exhibit a remarkable degree of flexibility in their social arrangements, apparently determined by the concentration of resources, particularly food and suitable denning sites

Question 32

Four colony formation and ecological factors

Answer 32

Population density
Distribution of suitable territory
Availability of suitable mates
Cost of helping in relation to the benefits gained from assisting kin

Question 33

What is allonursing?

Answer 33

Access to suckling and prey items distributed amongst all kittens

Question 34

Adolescent male cats

Answer 34

Stay with their natal groups, associating mainly with their own liftermales, until they disperse