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Kitchener, A.C.
Are cats really solitary?
2000 Lutra (43): 1-10
Of the 37 or so wild species of cats in the world most are regarded as solitary, secretive, non-social mammals. However, at least two species, the lion and the domestic cat, may show high degrees of sociality, and others, such as tigers, cheetahs and lynxes, may form social groups in certain situations. This paper explores the ecological and environmental constraints on cat sociality by focussing on the spectrum of social group size displayed by lions and domestic cats in different parts of their distributions. It also looks in detail at how cats communicate with each other, mainly through scent marks. Perhaps the majority of cat species are not solitary after all, but have instead a dispersed and flexible social system which allows them to exploit efficiently the environmental and ecological opportunities wherever they are found. Instead the term "solitary" should probably be reserved for the hunting strategy of most cats and other carnivores.
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