Felis is agenus of small and medium-sized catspecies native to most ofAfrica and south of 60°latitude inEurope andAsia toIndochina. The genus includes thedomestic cat. The smallest of the sevenFelis species is theblack-footed cat with a head and body length from 38 to 42 cm (15 to 17 in). The largest is thejungle cat with a head and body length from 62 to 76 cm (24 to 30 in).[1]
Genetic studies indicate that theFelinae generaFelis,Otocolobus andPrionailurus diverged from a Eurasian progenitor of theFelidae about6.2 million years ago, and thatFelis species split off 3.04 to 0.99 million years ago.[2][3]
Carl Linnaeus consideredFelis to comprise all cat species known until 1758.[5] Later taxonomists split thecat family into different genera. In 1917, the British zoologistReginald Innes Pocock revised the genusFelis as comprising only the ones listed in the following table.[1] Estimatedgenetic divergence times of the listed species are indicated inmillion years ago (Mya), based on analysis ofautosomal, xDNA, yDNA andmtDNA gene segments.[2]
Felis species have high and wide skulls, short jaws and narrow ears with short tufts, but without any white spots on the back of the ears. Theirpupils contract to a vertical slit.[1]A black cat fromTranscaucasia described in 1904 asF. daemon bySatunin[23] turned out to be aferal cat, probably ahybrid of wildcat and domestic cat.[24]TheKellas cat is a hybrid between domestic cat and European wildcat occurring inScotland.[25]
TheCorsican wildcat is considered to have been introduced to Corsica before the beginning of the 1st millennium.[26][27] A genetic study of a dozen individuals showed that they are closely related to the African wildcat originating in the Middle East.[28]
^Valpy, F. E. J. (1828)."Felis".An Etymological Dictionary of the Latin Language. London: A. J. Valpy.
^abLinnaeus, C. (1758)."Felis".Systema naturae per regna tria naturae: secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th reformed ed.). Holmiae: Laurentii Salvii. pp. 42–44.
^Clutton-Brock, J. (1999) [1987]."Cats".A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 133–140.ISBN978-0-521-63495-3.OCLC39786571.
^Schreber, J. C. D. (1778)."Die wilde Kaze" [The Wild Cat].Die Säugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen (Dritter Theil). Erlangen: Expedition des Schreber'schen Säugthier- und des Esper'schen Schmetterlingswerkes. pp. 397–402.
^Schreber, J. C. D. (1778)."Der Kirmyschak".Die Säugethiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur, mit Beschreibungen (in German). Erlangen: Wolfgang Walther. pp. 414–416.
^Forster, G. R. (1780)."LIII. Der Karakal".Herrn von Büffons Naturgeschichte der vierfüssigen Thiere. Mit Vermehrungen, aus dem Französischen übersetzt. Sechster Band [Mr. von Büffon's Natural History of Quadrupeds. With additions, translated from French. Volume 6]. Berlin: Joachim Pauli. pp. 299–319.
^Burchell, W. J. (1824)."Felis nigripes".Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, Vol. II. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. p. 592.
^Kitchener, C.; Easterbee, N. (1992). "The taxonomic status of black wild felids in Scotland".Journal of Zoology.227 (2): 342−346.doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1992.tb04832.x.
^Vigne, J.-D. (1992). "Zooarchaeology and the biogeographical history of the mammals of Corsica and Sardinia since the last ice age".Mammal Review.22 (2):87–96.doi:10.1111/j.1365-2907.1992.tb00124.x.
^Kitchener, A. C.; Breitenmoser-Würsten, C.; Eizirik, E.; Gentry, A.; Werdelin, L.; Wilting, A.; Yamaguchi, N.; Abramov, A. V.; Christiansen, P.; Driscoll, C.; Duckworth, J. W.; Johnson, W.; Luo, S.-J.; Meijaard, E.; O'Donoghue, P.; Sanderson, J.; Seymour, K.; Bruford, M.; Groves, C.; Hoffmann, M.; Nowell, K.; Timmons, Z.; Tobe, S. (2017)."A revised taxonomy of the Felidae: The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group"(PDF).Cat News. Special Issue 11: 17−20.
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