Caracal

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  For centuries, spectators watched the caracal, a wild cat of Africa and Asia, tear through flocks of pigeons for sport. Caracals were placed in arenas with the birds, and people bet on which cat would kill the most. This pastime probably gave English the phrase "to put the cat among the pigeons." The real animal is nothing like a spectacle. It is secretive and hard to observe. So how did it get its odd name, and what makes its face so distinctive? How does a cat of modest size bring down prey larger than itself? And why did tomb builders, merchants, and emperors all prize it?

  525553

• 2. Naming a Cat

  ›

  Georges Buffon proposed the word caracal in 1761. He borrowed it from a Turkish name, Karrah-kulak or Kara-coulac, which means black ear. The cat also goes by the names desert lynx and Persian lynx. Those names echo an older puzzle. The lynx of the ancient Greeks and Romans was most probably the caracal itself. The true lynx of today belongs to a separate genus.

  A German naturalist, Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber, gave the first scientific description in 1776. He worked from a caracal skin from the Cape of Good Hope and called the species Felis caracal. In 1843, John Edward Gray moved it into its own genus, Caracal. It sits in the cat family Felidae, within the subfamily Felinae.

  During the 19th and 20th centuries, naturalists described many specimens and proposed them as subspecies. Since 2017, only three have counted as valid. The southern caracal lives in Southern and East Africa. The northern caracal lives in North and West Africa. The Asiatic caracal lives in Asia.

  A phylogenetic study traced the caracal's deeper relatives. The caracal and the African golden cat split between 2.93 and 1.19 million years ago. Together with the serval, they form the Caracal lineage, which diverged between 11.56 and 6.66 million years ago. The ancestor of that lineage reached Africa between 8.5 and 5.6 million years ago.

  267811

• 3. Face and Build

  ›

  The tufts on a caracal's ears are black and about 4.5 cm long. They are the feature people notice first, but the face carries more. Two black stripes run from the forehead to the nose. Black outlines the mouth, and white patches ring the eyes and mouth. The upper eyelid sits low, so the eyes look half open. This is probably an adaptation against the sun's glare. The tufts may droop as the animal ages.

  The coat is a uniform reddish tan or sandy colour, though black caracals are also known. The belly and the insides of the legs are lighter, often with small reddish marks. The fur is soft, short, and dense. It turns coarser in summer. Guard hairs reach up to 3 cm in winter and shorten to 2 cm in summer. Moulting typically begins in the hot season, in October and November. The hind legs are longer than the forelegs, so the back slopes downward from the rump.

  A caracal stands 40-50 cm at the shoulder, with a bushy tan tail that reaches the hocks. Males measure 78-108 cm from head to body, with tails of 21-34 cm. Among 77 males, weights ranged from 7.2 to 19 kg. Females measure 71-103 cm, with tails of 18-31.5 cm. Among 63 females, weights ranged from 7 to 15.9 kg.

  Newcomers often mistake the caracal for a lynx, because both have tufted ears. Lynx species are spotted and blotched, while the caracal shows no such markings. The African golden cat has a similar build but is darker and has no ear tufts. The serval, which shares part of its range, also lacks ear tufts. It has white spots behind the ears, a spotted coat, longer legs, a longer tail, and smaller footprints.

  Inside, the skull is high and rounded, with large auditory bullae and a strong lower jaw. The caracal has 30 teeth, and its sharp canines are up to 2 cm long. The hind paws have four digits and the forepaws have five. The first digit of the foreleg stays off the ground and carries the dewclaw. The claws are sharp and retractile, larger but less curved on the hind legs.

  1416171845

• 4. The Hunt

  ›

  A caracal can leap more than 3 m into the air to pluck a bird from its flight. The powerful hind legs make this possible. The cat can even twist and change direction in mid-air. It is also an adroit climber.

  Before any leap comes the stalk. The caracal creeps until it is within 5 m of its target, then breaks into a sprint. Large prey such as antelopes die of suffocation from a throat bite. Smaller prey are killed with a bite to the back of the neck. Speed and agility let the cat take animals two to three times its own size.

  Small mammals make up at least 80% of what a caracal eats. It also targets small monkeys of the family Cercopithecidae, along with young kudu, impala, mountain gazelle, dorcas gazelle, Cape bushbuck, gerenuk, mountain reedbuck, Sharpe's grysbok, and springbok. The rest of the diet is lizards, snakes, and insects. In western India, rodents form a significant share. The cat tends to focus on whichever prey is most abundant. Occasionally it eats grasses and grapes, which help it clear parasites.

  In South Africa, the menu includes Cape grysbok, common duiker, bush vlei rats, rock hyrax, and Cape hare. On farms that raise sheep and goats, caracals have been documented taking small livestock. That is only a small, seasonal portion of the diet, when wild prey runs short. Between January 1999 and September 2021, caracals caused an estimated 11% of African penguin deaths in the Simon's Town breeding colony.

  Kills are eaten immediately, and less often dragged to cover. If undisturbed, the cat returns to large kills. With antelope, it has been seen starting at the hind parts. Scavenging is possible, but it has not been frequently observed.

  1537384243

• 5. Solitary Territories

  ›

  A study in South Africa found that caracals are most active when the air temperature drops below 20 C. Activity typically stops at higher temperatures. The cat is usually nocturnal, though some daytime activity occurs. It is so secretive that daytime movement can easily go unnoticed.

  A caracal usually lives alone or in pairs. The only groups seen are mothers with their offspring. A female in oestrus pairs up with a male only temporarily.

  In Israel, male territories averaged 220 square kilometres, while female territories averaged 57. In Saudi Arabia, male territories ranged from 270 to 1116 square kilometres. In Mountain Zebra National Park, female home ranges measured 4.0-6.5 square kilometres. These territories overlap extensively.

  The caracal marks rocks and vegetation with urine, and probably with dung, which it does not cover with soil. Claw scratching is prominent. Dung middens are typically not formed.

  The ear tufts and facial markings serve as a form of visual communication. Caracals have been seen greeting one another by moving the head from side to side so the tufts flicker rapidly. Like other cats, the caracal meows, growls, hisses, spits, and purrs.

  37141645

• 6. Raising Kittens

  ›

  Caracals breed throughout the year, yet births peak from October to February. Both sexes reach sexual maturity by their first birthday. Reproductive cells begin forming at seven to ten months, but successful mating takes place only at 12 to 15 months.

  A female's oestrus lasts one to three days and returns every two weeks unless she is pregnant. During it she urine-marks more often and forms a temporary pair with a male. Mating has not been extensively studied. In the few observations, copulation lasted nearly four minutes on average. The male first smells the spots she has marked, and she rolls on the ground. He then approaches and mounts her, and the pair separate afterwards.

  Gestation lasts about two to three months, and a litter holds one to six kittens. Births take place in dense vegetation or in deserted burrows of aardvarks and porcupines. Kittens arrive with eyes and ears shut and with claws that cannot be drawn in. The coat resembles an adult's, but the abdomen is spotted.

  The eyes open by ten days, though normal vision takes longer. By the third or fourth week, the ears stand erect and the claws become retractable. Around then the kittens begin roaming their birthplace. By the fifth or sixth week they play among themselves and begin taking solid food. The mother shifts them every day as they start to move about.

  All the milk teeth appear within 50 days, and permanent teeth are complete in ten months. A kitten waits nearly three months before its first kill. Juveniles begin dispersing at nine to ten months, though a few females stay with their mothers. A captive caracal lives nearly 16 years on average.

  In the 1990s, a captive caracal at the Moscow Zoo mated on its own with a domestic cat. The pairing produced a hybrid offspring.

  4647451614

• 7. Range and Risk

  ›

  In the Ethiopian Highlands, caracals live as high as 3000 m. Across Africa, the species is widely distributed south of the Sahara but considered rare in North Africa. In Asia, it occurs from the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to western India. It inhabits forests, savannas, marshy lowlands, semideserts, and scrub forests. It prefers dry areas with low rainfall and good cover. In Ethiopia's Degua Tembien massif, caracals can be seen along roads, sometimes as roadkills.

  In spring 2019, camera traps in Jebel Hafeet National Park, in the Al Ain Region of Abu Dhabi, photographed a male caracal. It was the first such record there since the mid-1980s. In October 2025, a caracal was spotted in Wadi Wurayah in the Emirate of Fujairah.

  In south-western Turkey, caracals live in a wildlife reserve across the provinces of Antalya and Muğla. People use the reserve for recreation and farming, but the cats avoid humans and are active mostly at night. In Uzbekistan, they were recorded only in the Ustyurt Plateau and the Kyzylkum Desert. Between 2000 and 2017-15 individuals were sighted alive, and at least 11 were killed by herders. In Iran, records come from Abbasabad Naein Reserve, Bahram'gur Protected Area, Kavir National Park, and Yazd province.

  In India, caracals occur in Sariska Tiger Reserve and Ranthambhore National Park. Their present range is limited to Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. The Indian population may be under 100.

  The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the caracal as Least Concern since 2002. The species is widely distributed across more than 50 range countries, but threats vary from place to place. Habitat loss from farming, roads, and settlements is a major threat everywhere. The cat is thought to be close to extinction in North Africa, critically endangered in Pakistan, and endangered in Jordan. It is stable in central and Southern Africa.

  Local people kill caracals to protect livestock or in retaliation for losses. On the Arabian Peninsula, caracals are also hunted for the pet trade. In Turkey and Iran, they are frequently killed on roads. In Uzbekistan, the main threat is killing by herders, because guarding methods and sheds do not protect goats and sheep well enough.

  African caracal populations fall under CITES Appendix II, while Asian populations fall under Appendix I. Hunting is prohibited in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In South Africa, the cat is rated Least Concern because it is widespread and adaptable, and it tolerates human-dominated areas. Farmers there are encouraged to report sightings of caracals, dead or alive, and livestock they kill, to the national Predation Management Information Centre. The Central Asian population has been listed as Critically Endangered in Uzbekistan since 2009 and in Kazakhstan since 2010.

  148232735

• 8. Tombs and Courts

  ›

  In ancient Egypt, the caracal appears in paintings and as bronze figurines. It seems to have held religious significance. Sculptures of the cat are thought to have guarded the tombs of pharaohs, and embalmed caracals have been discovered.

  Mughal emperors in India valued the caracal for its skill at catching birds in flight and used it for coursing. This use goes back at least to the Delhi Sultanate. Chinese emperors used caracals as gifts. In the 13th and 14th centuries, rulers of the Yuan dynasty bought numerous caracals, cheetahs, and tigers from Muslim merchants in the western parts of the empire. They paid in gold, silver, copper cash, and silk. According to the Ming Shilu, the Ming dynasty that followed continued the practice.

  Until the 20th century, Indian rulers took caracals on hunts for small game, while the cheetah was kept for larger game. The caracal's quarry included bustards, francolins, and other game birds. Its pelt was also made into fur coats.

  5253545516