You all are way too good. The "mystery creature" from yesterday is indeed a fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), photographed July 15th, 2008 at the Philadelphia zoo.
That is one cool cat. When I saw the title in my newsreader, before reading up on its range, I was reminded of a cat an old friend of mine used to have. There was a stream running through his property, on a small island off the coast of BC, and this cat used to sit in the stream with just his head above water and wait for ducks to swim by. I never believed that until one day when I was visiting he dragged a full grown mallard into the house that he caught :)
Aside from skull length, the fishing cat looks surprisingly like a house cat (gray tabby). The patterning is especially striking. One wonders if the fishing cat itself was a "target" for domestication.
Well, that's not entirely accurate. It's generally believed that cats (and dogs) domesticated themselves by integrating themselves into human society for food and shelter. However, one still wonders if the fishing cat took advantage of human encampments and "became" the modern tabby.
That is one cool cat. When I saw the title in my newsreader, before reading up on its range, I was reminded of a cat an old friend of mine used to have. There was a stream running through his property, on a small island off the coast of BC, and this cat used to sit in the stream with just his head above water and wait for ducks to swim by. I never believed that until one day when I was visiting he dragged a full grown mallard into the house that he caught :)
Aside from skull length, the fishing cat looks surprisingly like a house cat (gray tabby). The patterning is especially striking. One wonders if the fishing cat itself was a "target" for domestication.
Well, that's not entirely accurate. It's generally believed that cats (and dogs) domesticated themselves by integrating themselves into human society for food and shelter. However, one still wonders if the fishing cat took advantage of human encampments and "became" the modern tabby.
Yay! I need a more challenging "guess the felid" than that :P