wildcat

[wahyld-kat]

wildcat, common name of Old World cats (Felis sylvestris) of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The wildcat resembles a large domestic tabby cat with a heavy tail; its fur is brownish to gray, with a pattern of light stripes. It can and does interbreed with domestic cats. The five subspecies are the European, Near Eastern, Southern African, Central Asian, and Chinese desert cats. The Near Eastern wildcat (F. sylvestris lybica) was apparently domesticated some 10,000 years ago, possibly when the cats began to prey on mice and rats attracted to ancient granaries, and is ancestral to the modern domestic cat. The name wildcat is also applied regionally to a variety of small cats. In North America it is a common name for the bobcat (see lynx).

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wildcat bank

In the U.S., an unsound bank chartered under state law during the period of state banking control (1816–63). Such banks distributed currency backed by questionable securities and were located in inaccessible areas to discourage note redemption. Note circulation by state banks ended with the passage of the National Bank Act of 1863, which provided for the incorporation of national banks and the issue of banknotes on the security of government bonds. The term wildcat bank was later applied to any unstable bank.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

wildcat

Wild species (Felis silvestris) of cat (family Felidae) native to Eurasian forests. Very similar to the domestic yellowish tabby, it will interbreed with domestic cats (of which it is presumably an ancestor). It is 20–32 in. (50–80 cm) long, excluding the 10–14-in. (25–35-cm) tail. It stands 14–16 in. (35–40 cm) and weighs 6–20 lbs (3–10 kg). Solitary and nocturnal, it preys on birds and small animals. In North America the name is used for the bobcat and lynx; in Africa it refers to the Caffre cat.

Learn more about wildcat with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Wildcat

The Wildcat (Felis silvestris), sometimes Wild Cat or Wild-cat, is a small felid native to Europe, the western part of Asia, and Africa. It is a hunter of small mammals, birds, and other creatures of a similar size. There are several subspecies distributed in different regions. Sometimes included is the ubiquitous domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus), which has been introduced to every habitable continent and most of the world's larger islands, and has become feral in many of those environments.

In its native environment, the Wildcat is adaptable to a variety of habitat types: savanna, open forest, and steppe. Although domesticated breeds show a great variety of shapes and colours, wild individuals are medium-brown with black stripes, between 45 and 80 cm (18–32 inches) in length, and weigh between 3 and 8 kilograms (6–17.6 pounds). Shoulder height averages about 35 cm (14 in) and tail length is about 30 cm (12 in). The African subspecies tends to be a little smaller and a lighter brown in colour.

The Wildcat is extremely timid. It avoids approaching human settlements. It lives solitarily and holds a territory of about 3 km².

A study by the National Cancer Institute suggests that all current house cats in the world are descendants from a group of self-domesticating Wildcats 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East. The closest relative of the Wildcat is the Sand Cat (Felis margarita).

Diet

It is an obligate carnivore, like all felines, and consumes almost every part of any kill it makes; the coat providing roughage, the bones calcium, and the meat everything else, in fact they rarely need to drink because meat has such a high water content. The Wildcat often carries parasitic worms in its gut and will eat long blades of grass to help clear out its system and probably also to obtain certain necessary acids not present in meat.