No, this is not a tiny kitten rejected by
its mother and contemplating a hostile world with large, fearful eyes. This is a rusty-spotted cat, and it’s a full-grown adult. These diminutive carnivores intrepidly patrol the
forest areas of India and Sri Lanka—to the amazement of many researchers…
repared to take on anything, they are aware
of everymovement, all the faint rustling noises along the forest floor. The small
animals that move silently through the undergrowth weigh just over 3 pounds
fully grown. For three days now, biologist Sailaja Nayak and her colleague
Sunny Shah have been waiting in an elevated hunting blind in Ramgarh Vishdhari
Wildlife Sanctuary in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
Once again the time has come for the
all-India tiger census, which counts the number and assesses the territorial spread
of the magnificent cats every four years. Keeping their tranquilizer guns and
darts at the ready, the two researchers stand listening intently to the various
sounds of the forest. “Something is moving,” whispers Sunny. Sailaja raises her
binoculars: “Where?” “Down near that stream.” The young woman holds her breath as
she looks through the binoculars: “No… That is a… No, it couldn’t be. What’s
that doing here?” Stepping gingerly, a small creature with brown spots climbs
over a root that extends from the bank into the water. It stops cautiously for
a moment and looks around, pricking its ears expectantly. Then with lightning
speed it plunges its front paws into the brown water. A frog just barely evades
its grasp and leaps for the shore, the hunter in close pursuit. A plaintive
meow with a hint of exaltation rises to the blind where the biologists are
concealed.
The two can hardly believe their eyes: Moments
earlier they’d been awaiting the biggest cat species on Earth, and what are
they seeing now? The tiniest! Here in northwestern India, no less—far from its
normal habitat in Sri Lanka and the south of the Indian continent.
“Write it down,” Sailaja tells Sunny,“Sighted:
Prionailurus rubiginosus, for the fi rst time ever in this
sanctuary.”
And indeed the sighting overshadows any
possible encounter with a tiger. Why? Because this cat is so rare—and so tiny.
You could easily hold a rustyspotted cat in the palm of your hand.They come
into the world weighing a little more than 2 ounces and never make it to 4
pounds, even as adults. That has earned them the nickname “the hummingbird of
the cat family.” Relatively little is known about these secretive animals, but
it is clear that what they lack in size, they make up for in unfl appable
courage and sheer doggedness. With a sense of smell that is six times more
sensitive than that of a human being, the cat with the four striking stripes on
its head searches the forest fl oor for its prey, exhibiting a predilection for
rodents, birds, small lizards, and frogs. But as the pioneering British
ornithologist T. C.
Jerdon noted in amazement—a man who
described many species of Indian birds and kept a rusty-spotted cat as a pet—these
small felines don’t hesitate to take on oversized prey. When Jerdon’s pet cat
encountered a huge gazelle, it leaped right up onto the ungulate’s back and sank
its teeth into the neck of its enormous quarry. It took quite a bit of
persuasion before the biologist could manage to pry the determined cat off its
intended prey. And when you think about it—pound for pound: How can a tiger
beat that?
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