Jungle Cat (Felis chaus)

Common Names: Jungle Cat, Swamp Cat, Reed Cat

Jungle cats are not frequenters of ‘jungles’, but prefer moist areas with reeds or high grass, woodlands and open scrub, grassland and agricultural croplands such as cornfields, sugar cane and cotton. They are often found in the vicinity of water, from the Volga River delta and Egypt to Indochina, as well as Thailand and Vietnam. They also occur in Sri Lanka.

The coat colour of the jungle cat varies from a sandy or yellowish grey, to a greyish brown or tawny red above, with underparts of the slender body cream or pale rufous. The legs sometimes retain some faint horizontal striping, not completely faded from their younger days. Their head is rather narrow and has a high domed forehead. Ears are tall and rounded, tipped with small tufts of black hair, and set fairly close together. The eyes have bright yellow irises. Their legs are long and slender, and the tail is comparatively short, with several dark rings and a black tip. Melanistic individuals have been found in Pakistan and India.

Jungle cats feed on a wide variety of prey species, reflecting the variety of habitats they frequent. In the reed beds of the Nile delta they hunt water voles, frogs, fish and waterfowl, while in drier habitats they feed on everything from hares, gerbils and house mice to birds, snakes, lizards, and domestic poultry.

Jungle cats frequently use the abandoned burrows of other carnivores such as foxes and badgers as den sites. Known to be active by day and by night, they are often spotted amidst human settlements, denning in old buildings. They adapt well to cultivated lands, and are found in many different types of agricultural and forest plantations throughout their range.

They are thought to be polyestrous throughout the year. Mating occurs in February and March in Central Asia but May is thought to be the chief mating season in India. Kittens have been found in Assam in January and February, and in June in the west Caspian region. It is possible that the jungle cat breeds twice a year in productive habitat. One to six kittens are usually born in den sites located in dense reed beds or other thick vegetation, also in hollow trees or abandoned burrows. The kittens are born with black stripes that fade with age. They weigh 130 - 140 grams at birth and their eyes open at 10 - 12 days. They are weaned at three months, stalk and kill prey by five to six months (independent by this time), and are sexually mature between 11 and 18 months of age. Captive individuals have lived to 15 years old. The jungle cat was once fairly common in zoos but their numbers are now dwindling.

These cats share the distinction with African wildcats Felis silvestris and domestic cats Felis catus of having been mummified and placed in tombs in ancient Egypt. They are also depicted hunting small birds and mammals in Egyptian wall paintings. There has been some speculation that jungle cats may have been involved in the ancestry of the domestic cat, but the bodies found in Egyptian tombs offer too little evidence to prove this one way or the other.

This species is considered common over most of their range. Jungle cats are killed by farmers because of their taste for domestic poultry, and sportsmen don’t like them because they kill game species such as hares and francolins. However, reclamation and destruction of natural wetlands pose a more serious threat to the species. Protected only through parts of their range, they are placed on Appendix II of CITES.