The Afro-Asiatic wildcat (Felis lybica) is the world’s most widely distributed wildcat, but experts and information on the species are scarce.
The species’ range is immense, stretching across most of Africa, Southwest and Central Asia, India, China and Mongolia. But Arash Ghoddousi, lead author for F lybica’s 2022 IUCN species conservation, says the study team found “few people [who] knew anything about the cats”.
That seeming lack of human curiosity is surprising, considering the domestic tabbies we keep as pets and lavish billions of dollars on annually are descended, and still closely related to, the Afro-Asiatic wildcat.
One researcher who has shown intense interest is Marna Herbst, now a regional ecologist for South African National Parks. Previous research on F lybica had been based on opportunistic sightings and scat and stomach analysis.
Herbst changed that, spending roughly four years and 10-12 hours nightly observing the cats in the harsh unforgiving landscape of the southern Kalahari Desert for her PhD research, published in 2009.
She was the first (and remains the only) scientist to conduct such a long-term study on the species documenting its behaviors and population genetics.
Searching for the wildcat
Herbst carried out her study in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, a known African wildcat habitat straddling the borders of South Africa and Botswana. The small wildcats there were assumed...
