IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Hunter, L. | |
| The Serval - High-rise Hunter | |
| 2000 Africa - Environment & Wildlife (July 2000): 34-40 | |
The serval _Leptailurus serval_ is evolution's answer to a better mousetrap. Unique among cats, its suite of morphological refinements make this elegant felid a champion rodent specialist. Elongated legs, relatively the longest of all cats', raise the serval above the tall grasses where it hunts and allow it to execute fourmetre- long pounces, easily and silently clearing grass tips over a metre high. Its long, flexible spine enhances its vaulting prowess and perhaps because its repertoire almost never includes long chases or arboreal tactics, the serval's tail is comparatively superfluous. Unlike the cheetah, which uses its rudder-like tail as a crucial counterbalance during high-speed hunts, and forest cats like the Asian clouded leopard whose long tail enhances tree-top agility, the serval has little need for such compensation and its tail is relatively short. |
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(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |