What is your favorite spotted cat?

aardvark250 said:
I guess my favourite spotted cat would be black-footed cat. They are cute yet are excellent predators. Want to see one. If we are just counting big cat it would be snow leopard.
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I absolutely love snow leopards! And yeah it’s amazing how good black-footed cats are at being predators despite their small size. I’ve never seen one in a zoo though.
 
Junklekitteb said:
Yes, because Rusty-spotted cats, Fishing cats, Andean Mountain cats, Leopard cats, Kodkods, Tigrinas, Ocelots, Geoffroy’s cats, Chinese Desert cats, Jungle cats, Black-footed cats, Bay cats, Golden cats and lynxes are extremely overrated.
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When I made that comment, I meant that leopards, snow leopards, and Jaguars, are all criminally underrated cats when compared to lions or tigers because in my opinion tigers and lions get all the fame, love, and publicity, not enough people appreciate leopards, Jaguars, and snow leopards.
 
This is a tough one. If I could bend the rules and choose a New World favorite and an Old World favorite, I am going to do that. For the New World, my favorite species is the Kodkod (Leopardus guigna) being the smallest cat in the Americas. I am especially fascinated by their ecology and how their main prey is Southern pudu (Pudu puda), one of the two smallest deer (Family: Cervidae) species. Seeing their Chilean temperate forest ecosystem being showcased in nature documentaries is quite a fascinating sight! For the Old World, though their spotting is more subtle, I would say that my favorite species is the Rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus). They are one of the smallest members of the family Felidae. I have heard proposals from taxonomists that the population in Sri Lanka's dry zone and the population in Sri Lanka's wet zone should be separate subspecies, giving the name Prionailurus rubiginosus koladivinus to the dry zone population and the name Prionailurus rubiginosus phillipsi to the wet zone population. Subspecific or even full specific distinction in Sri Lanka’s wet zone and dry zone, especially with mammals is a very common biogeographic trend. But being that Paulus Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described ssp. koladivinus, their taxonomic validity is questionable... I have a lot of stories to tell about PEP Deraniyagala, but I won't be digressing further from this thread.
 
Oof. It's hard to choose, all of my favorite cat species have spots :p

Jaguars are my favorite big cat by a thin margin, though the various leopard subspecies and snow leopards are high up there. And then for the small-ish cats it's a tie between black-footed cats and fishing cats. Getting a very up-close look at a black-footed cat and her kittens is still one of my zoo highlights!
 
I've never been as fond of cheetahs as I am of the other large spotted cats. Jaguar, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard are all beautiful species.
If I have to pick one right now I'm going to say Sri Lankan leopard because that's the only one of the bunch I saw in the wild and therefor I'll always have a soft spot for them.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Not spotted but among the smaller cats my favourites would have to be the pampas cat (with the latest taxonomic revision now called the Pantanal cat) the Andean cat, and the Asiatic golden cat.
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Some Asiatic golden cats are spotted (and this may be my favorite spotted cat and one that I would love to see and photograph).
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Arizona Docent said:
Some Asiatic golden cats are spotted (and this may be my favorite spotted cat and one that I would love to see and photograph).
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I agree, they are very striking felines (whether spotted or not).

Beautiful animal in the photograph by the way , where was the photo taken ? (The graffiti in the enclosure is a bit strange though)
 
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