Small New World Cats

There are four kinds of small wildcats in tropical America, ranging over Mexico, Central America, and South America. One is the Pampa cat of the southern pampas (plains), the high Andes, and the open savanna (grassland) of central Brazil. It is about three feet long, in­cluding the tail which is one foot long. The color is pale ashy or tawny and the stripes more reddish than black. The stripes of the upper parts are often absent, or very faint. It feeds on birds, burrowing rodents, and any other mammal that it can catch.

The colacola is a larger cat, related to the pampas cat, and is very rare. Little is known about it.

Geoffrey’s cat is a gray or tawny spotted forest and open-country cat about two to three feet long. It is fairly common, and is widespread in southern South America. Its habits are the same as those of other small cats.

The smallest of the New World cats is known as the margay, and lives in Mexico and South America. It is a forest cat, and varies in color from rich yellow, tawny yellow, or reddish to buff and olive-gray, with black spots and stripes. In length it averages about three feet from its nose to the end of its tail. It lives in holes in trees, caves, or burrows of other animals, and has two or three young a year. Margays are said to make nice pets.