The Cat Survival Trust

The Jungle Cat

Felis chaus Schreber

Photo: Terry Moore

Contents
	Description Distribution Diet Behaviour Reproduction Conservation Status Captive Breeding and Jungle Cats in Captivity Further Reading

Other names
	English:	Swamp cat, Reed cat
	French:	chat des marais, chat de jungle
	German:	Rohrkatze, Sumpfluchs
	Spanish:	gato de la jungla, gato de los pantanos

Description

Also called the reed and swamp cat, the jungle cat’s coat is usually pale sandy brown but the colour can vary from yellowish-grey to tawny red. The underbelly is white. It is a very similar coloration to the Abyssinian breeds of the domestic cat.
Jungle cats are larger than domestic cats, and males are bigger than the females. There are no body markings except transverse brown stripes on the long legs. The tall, rounded, ears are reddish with white central bars on the back, and have small lynxlike tufts. The black-tipped tail is short, with maybe two or three faint rings.
Considerably larger than the African wildcat, the ancestor of the domestic cats, the jungle cat was trained for hunting wildfowl in Ancient Egypt. Both species were mummified and entombed.
The anterior upper premolar is distinctly developed.
There are nine recognised subspecies:

F. c. chaus	Turkestan to Iran and Baluchistan
F. c. affinis	Kashmir to Sikkim, Yunnan and Indo-China
F. c. fulvidina	Thailand and Burma
F. c. furax	Southern Syria and Iraq
F. c. kelaarti	Sri Lanka
F. c. kutas	Bengal to the Rann of Kutch
F. c. nilotica	Egypt
F. c. oxiana	Russia
F. c. prateri	Sind, west India

The central Asian animals are, on average, larger than the Indian ones. The Thai and Indian individuals weigh about 4 kg. Melanistic specimens have been recorded from Pakistan and India.

Principal dimensions

	Overall	Males	Females
Head and Body lengths (cm)	60-76
Height at shoulder (cm)	35-38
Tail lengths (cm)	22-30
Weight (Kg)	4-16

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Distribution and Habitats

Widely distributed from Lower Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Asia Minor to Transcaucasia and north along the west coast of the Caspian sea to the lower reaches of the Volga and east through Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, and Kazakhstan to Chinese Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Nepal and south through the Indian subcontinent to Sri Lanka, and Burma, Thailand, Indo-China and Yunnan.
In Egypt and Iraq the jungle cat appears to prefer swampy ground and reed beds, while in India, they live in woodlands, open plains, grasslands, arid scrublands and agricultural areas (corn fields, sugar cane plantations). Tamarisk jungles are the favoured spots in Jordan. Jungle cats are found from sea-level to 2,400 metres in the Himalaya.
Reported to prowl near villages, they have been known to shelter in buildings.
The map shows the distribution of Jungle Cats in grey.
The map is based on information in the Wild Cats Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan published by the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group in 1996. See our Books page for more details.

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Diet

Jungle cats prey primarily upon small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. They will hunt subterranean bandicoot rats. In Uzbekistan they seem to rely more on birds in winter and more on reptiles and insects in summer. They are known to kill porcupines and will readily take fish, frogs and snakes. They are potential predators on game birds, domestic poultry and chital fawns. Tiger kills will also be scavenged. In addition, they have been reported to eat the fruits of the Russian olive in Tadzhikistan.
A jungle cat attacked a starving Indian girl and carried away the only piece of bread she held (V. Sharma and K. Sankhala (1984). Vanishing Cats of Rajasthan (India), In: The Plight of the Cats: Proceedings of the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group meeting in Kanha National Park, India, April 1984. p.117-136).

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Behaviour

Often seen hunting in broad daylight, jungle cats display flexible behaviour patterns. Mendelssohn (1989) states that they are proficient swimmers, and that they walk long distances in shallow water. They have been seen to make high vertical leaps in pursuit of birds. They frequently use the disused burrows of other animals.
Congregations of jungle cats have been seen in the wild, the purpose of which is not known. They are probably related to courtship behaviour. While the young are being reared they appear to live in families, Mendelssohn reports that the males are more committed defenders of their offspring than are the females. Although captive jungle cats will display social behaviour, such as mutual grooming, they are believed to be solitary in the wild.
Males have particularly loud howls, which sound almost like barks.

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Reproduction

Three to five kittens are born in May, in a nest of dry reeds lined with fur. At birth they weigh approximately 136 grammes. Young jungle cats are camouflaged with irregular spots and stripes. Gestation is 63 to 76 days, the kittens are weaned at 3 months, and by six months they are able to stalk and kill their own prey. 18 month old jungle cats are fully mature. In Central Asia mating occurs in February and March. In Assam three week old kittens have been found at the end of January. It has been suggested that they may breed twice a year.
They can live for at least fifteen years in captivity.

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Conservation Status

Very little is known about the status of jungle cat populations. They have been greatly persecuted in the past, and will have certainly benefited from the protected zones which have been set up for tiger conservation. Thought to be scarce over much of its range, the species is reasonably safe as a whole, because it does have such a large distribution.
International commerce in jungle cat products is strictly regulated under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. They are listed on Appendix II.

Twelve adult jungle cats are killed to make one fur coat

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) do not consider the jungle cat to be threatened (Conservation and Legal Status of Wild Cats. Cat News, 12, 1990, 26).

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