Corsican wildcat

The Corsican wildcat is a feral domestic cat (Felis catus) population that used to be considered a subspecies of the African wildcat (Felis lybica), but is now thought to have been introduced to Corsica around the beginning of the first millennium.[1][2]

Corsican wildcat
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Felinae
Genus: Felis
Species:
F. catus
Binomial name
Felis catus
Synonyms
  • Felis reyi Levauden, 1929
  • Felis lybica reyi Pocock, 1951

In 2019, several newspapers reported on the supposed discovery of the Corsican wildcat as a previously unknown cat species, calling it "cat-fox".[3][4]

Taxonomy

The scientific name Felis reyi was proposed by Louis Lavauden in 1929 who described a skin and a skull of a female cat specimen from Biguglia and considered it a new species.[5] It was reclassified as a subspecies of the African wildcat by Reginald Innes Pocock who reviewed Felis skins in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.[6] Following zooarchaeologic research in Corsica, it was regarded to have been introduced to the island during the Roman Empire, likely originating from domestic cat stock.[1] As of 2017, it is no longer considered a valid species or subspecies.[2]

Description

The Corsican wildcat was described as being a darker than the African wildcat with a shorter tail and dark brown on the backs of the ears.[5][2]

References
  1. Vigne, J.-D. (1992). "Zooarchaeology and the biogeographical history of the mammals of Corsica and Sardinia since the last ice age". Mammal Review. 22 (2): 87–96. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2907.1992.tb00124.x.
  2. Kitchener, A. C.; Breitenmoser-Würsten, C.; Eizirik, E.; Gentry, A.; Werdelin, L.; Wilting, A.; Yamaguchi, N.; Abramov, A. V.; Christiansen, P.; Driscoll, C.; Duckworth, J. W.; Johnson, W.; Luo, S.-J.; Meijaard, E.; O’Donoghue, P.; Sanderson, J.; Seymour, K.; Bruford, M.; Groves, C.; Hoffmann, M.; Nowell, K.; Timmons, Z. & Tobe, S. (2017). "A revised taxonomy of the Felidae: The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group" (PDF). Cat News. Special Issue 11: 17−20.
  3. Saplakoglu, Y. (2019). "Meet the Cat-Fox, an Oddball Feline Roaming Around a French Island". Live Science. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  4. Willingham, A.J. (2019). "A new species of 'cat fox' may be prowling French island of Corsica". CNN. Retrieved 2020-10-17.
  5. Lavauden, L. (1929). "Sur le Chat sauvage de la Corse" [On the Wildcat of Corsica]. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des Sciences. 189 (7): 1023–1024.
  6. Pocock, R. I. (1951). "Felis lybica sarda, Lataste". Catalogue of the genus Felis. London: British Museum (Natural History). pp. 52–61.
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