95 Fun Facts About Big Cat

Which animal, the fastest land mammal of the New World, would still lose a sprint to a cheetah?

The pronghorn is slower than a cheetah over a sprint, but it can hold high speeds for kilometres, while a cheetah's chase averages under 40 seconds.

What is a group of lions called?

A pride centres on related females, and males who take one over often kill the young cubs, likely so the mothers breed again sooner.

Which Indian ruler commissioned a mechanical organ shaped like a tiger mauling a European?

Tipu Sultan: after he was killed as British troops stormed his capital in 1799, it was shipped to London and put on public display.

Which coat feature tells a jaguar apart from a leopard?

Spots inside its rosettes: a leopard's rosettes lack them, and in both cats the broken pattern helps break up the body's outline.

What is a 'black panther'?

A melanistic leopard or jaguar still has its rosettes: the dark coat hides them, but they show through in the right light.

Which Los Angeles park did P-22, the mountain lion who crossed two freeways, make his home?

Griffith Park: P-22 crossed the 101 and 405 freeways to reach it, and his fame helped fund the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101.

What stops the snow leopard from roaring like the other Panthera cats?

Its vocal folds are too short: it still has the partly ossified hyoid bone that was long credited with letting big cats roar.

In which country did scientists report five wild lionesses that had grown manes?

Botswana: high testosterone likely grew their manes, and though some were seen mating, none became pregnant, suggesting infertility.

What is a liger?

The offspring of a male lion and a tigress usually outgrows both parents, likely because of how growth genes from the two species interact; tigons don't.

Which habit is the tiger famous for, unlike most cats?

Swimming across wide rivers comes naturally: tigers seek out water while most cats avoid it, and they often immerse themselves in water on hot days.

In which state do Asia's last wild lions survive?

Gujarat: Asiatic lions once roamed as far west as Greece, but now survive only in and around its Gir forest.

What do the cheetah's black tear streaks connect?

The eyes and the mouth: the black streaks may help cut the sun's glare as a cheetah fixes its eyes on prey.

On which two islands did wild tigers die out during the 20th century?

Java and Bali: across Asia, tigers now occupy under 7% of their historic range, as people cleared forests and hunted them.

Where is a leopard famous for hauling its kill to keep it from rivals?

Up a tree: leopards are strong enough to haul carcasses heavier than themselves up into the branches before feeding.

Which extinct cat did Ice Age artists paint on the walls at France's Chauvet-Pont d'Arc?

The cave lion: Chauvet has been closed to the public since its discovery to protect its fragile art, so visitors see its lions in a replica cave nearby.

Why may a tiger's orange coat look green to the deer it hunts?

They can't see red, so to deer the orange blends into the greenery, while the stripes break up the tiger's outline in tall grass.

What is one reason lions hunt as a team?

One reason is that much of their prey is faster than they are; lionesses split roles, with some chasing prey toward the centre of the group, where others make the catch.

What is the jaguar's unusual killing method for mammal prey?

Biting through the skull between the ears delivers a fatal blow to the brain, and the same crushing bite lets it crack turtle shells.

Where does the jaguar rank among the world's cat species by size?

Third, after the tiger and lion: stocky and short-legged, the jaguar ambushes its prey rather than chasing it down.

A cheetah's most famous adaptation for speed apart from its legs is which body part?

A flexible spine coils and extends like a spring, stretching the front legs far forward so each stride covers more ground.

Which two predators prey on cheetah cubs and routinely steal adult cheetahs' kills?

Lions and hyenas: that's why a cheetah eats its catch as quickly as it can, before these bigger rivals bully it away.

The Asiatic cheetah, long gone from India, survives in the wild in only which country?

Iran, where only a small population survives in the wild; India's 2022 reintroduction used African cheetahs flown in from Namibia.

Besides helping it balance, what does a snow leopard use its long, thick tail as?

A blanket: it wraps the tail around its body to cover sensitive parts against the cold, while its wide, furry paws are the ones that work like snowshoes.

What is the main wild prey of the snow leopard?

Ibex and blue sheep: snow leopards follow their prey's seasonal migrations, often moving down to lower elevations in winter.

In Kipling's The Jungle Book, which character is a black panther?

Bagheera: he buys the man-cub Mowgli's place in the wolf pack at the price of a freshly killed bull.

Which state was the only place eastern cougars survived the hunting of the early 1900s?

Florida: its inbred panthers were rescued in 1995 when eight female pumas from Texas were released there, and by 2017 their numbers had risen more than fivefold.

Which Kenyan region's man-eating lions killed workers building the Uganda Railway?

Tsavo: isotopes in the two lions' bones and hair show one leaned increasingly on human prey, and dental injuries may have pushed them to softer food.

Which pigment condition gives white lions their pale coats, though they aren't albino?

Leucism: white lions vanished from the wild through human pressure, until some were later reintroduced near South Africa's Kruger Park.

What is the IUCN Red List status of the tiger?

Endangered: tigers are mainly threatened by poaching for their fur and body parts, and by the loss of the forests they live in.

What does a cougar usually do with a large kill it can't finish in one meal?

Covers it with brush: a cougar drags the carcass to a chosen spot, buries it under leaves and debris, and returns to feed over several days.

Armed men drove the Champawat Tiger, blamed for over 430 deaths, out of which country?

Nepal: rather than ending the killings, this pushed her across the border into India's Kumaon, where she kept on killing.

What is the name of the short, soft snorting sound big cats make in friendly greeting?

Prusten: beyond greetings, mothers use it to comfort their cubs, and females in heat prusten more when courting.

Clouded leopards can hang beneath branches by gripping them with what?

Their hind paws: flexible ankles let clouded leopards dangle upside down and even climb down trunks head first.

What do you call a group of male cheetahs, usually brothers, that live together for life?

A coalition: brothers team up to hold a territory where females pass through, while each female roams a far larger range alone.

Why can unrelated cheetahs often accept each other's skin grafts?

Their genes are extremely similar, likely after a population crash about 10,000 years ago, which also leaves cheetahs more vulnerable to disease.

What makes a cheetah's footprint look more like a dog's than a typical cat's?

Its claw tips show: a cheetah's claws are only partly retractile and lack a protective sheath, so they grip the ground like running spikes.

Which lions, extinct in the wild, are thought to live on in the Moroccan royal family's captive collection?

Barbary lions: Morocco's sultans and kings long kept these lions, and their descendants have since been bred in coordination across Moroccan and European zoos.

'Ounce', an old name for the snow leopard, traces back through Old French 'lonce' to which Greek word?

Lynx: French speakers took the L of 'lonce' for the article 'the', as in l'once, so the word lost its L.

Which country lost its breeding jaguars, leaving only rare sightings of lone males?

The US: jaguars once ranged across its southern states, but hunting and habitat loss have left the species in about half its former range.

How can you tell a white tiger from a true albino tiger?

Blue eyes and dark stripes: a white tiger lacks only the orange pigment in its fur, while a true albino lacks pigment altogether and has pink eyes.

Which US law, first signed in December 2003, bans the interstate sale and transport of big cats as pets?

It covers lions, tigers, leopards, snow and clouded leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, cougars and their hybrids; 19 states ban ownership outright.

How do related lionesses, the stable core of a lion group, treat an outside lioness?

They drive her away: most females spend their lives in the group they were born into, while all the young males leave.

Cecil, the lion whose killing by a trophy hunter in 2015 sparked a global outcry, lived in which country?

Zimbabwe: the outcry pushed Delta, United and other major airlines to stop flying hunters' big-game trophies.

The four bronze lions around London's Nelson's Column were designed by which painter?

Edwin Landseer: the dead lion he worked from began to decompose during delays, so its paws ended up modelled on a cat's.

Namibia's Cheetah Conservation Fund breeds guard dogs from which country to protect farmers' herds from cheetahs?

Turkey: its Anatolian shepherds and Kangals bark loudly enough to warn cheetahs off, so farmers have less need to shoot them.

Which two big cats share the forests of Russia's Far East?

The leopard and the tiger: tigers can kill leopards, so leopards tend to avoid the places where tigers are most common.

Which relative of the alligator is regular jaguar prey in Brazil's Pantanal wetland?

The caiman: Pantanal jaguars now draw so many wildlife tourists that jaguar-watching earns local communities valuable income.

Which call do cheetah mothers use to find their cubs?

A chirp: mothers use it to call their cubs, and male cheetahs chirp to find companions they've been separated from.

In Greek myth, how did Heracles kill the Nemean lion, whose hide arrows couldn't pierce?

He strangled it with his bare hands, and in most tellings he then wore its hide as a cloak, one of his most famous attributes.

The cheetah is the only living member of which genus?

Acinonyx: despite its spotted coat, the cheetah's closest living relatives turn out to be the cougar and the jaguarundi.

Which book tells how Joy Adamson raised Elsa, an orphaned lion cub, in Kenya?

Born Free. Making its film in Kenya changed stars Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who went on to found the charity now called the Born Free Foundation.

The word 'cheetah' comes via Hindi from a Sanskrit word meaning what?

Variegated or painted, for its spotted coat. Its dark tear marks may help it hunt by day by cutting the sun's glare.

Which country holds at least half of all snow leopard habitat?

China. The cat's range takes in the vast Tibetan Plateau, most of which lies within China's borders.

Which two islands are home to the Sunda clouded leopard?

Borneo and Sumatra. In 2006 a genetic study and a study of coat markings found the island cats distinct enough to be split off as their own species.

A mythical winged snow leopard, the Aq Bars, appears on the coat of arms of which Russian republic?

Tatarstan. The white leopard has long been a symbol of the Tatars, so the republic's arms show it winged and carrying a round shield.

At which London department store did two Australians buy Christian the lion as a cub in 1969?

Harrods had acquired the cub from a zoo park in Devon, and he spent months living in the basement of a London furniture shop where his owners worked. George Adamson later released him in Kenya.

Which Hollywood studio has used a lion mascot named Leo in its logo since it was formed in 1924?

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer inherited the lion from Goldwyn Pictures, whose publicist chose it in 1916 as a tribute to the mascot of his old university. Eight different lions have filled the role since 1924.

What do Ganges delta villagers wear on the back of the head to deter tigers, which tend to attack from behind?

A human-face mask on the back of the head, tried from 1986, bets that a tiger will not pounce on a person who seems to be watching it. The cats reportedly caught on.

Which Guinness World Record belongs to the cougar?

Most names for an animal is the cougar's record, with more than 40 in English alone, among them puma, mountain lion and catamount, a shortening of 'cat of the mountain'.

The name of Simba, hero of Disney's The Lion King, is simply the word for 'lion' in which language?

Swahili is spoken across East Africa, where the film's artists travelled for research. The kingdom's landscape is modelled on a Kenyan national park the crew visited in 1991.

What do male lions usually do to a group's young cubs after ousting the resident males?

The victors often kill them, perhaps because a lioness will not become fertile again until her cubs mature or die. Mothers defend fiercely, but rarely succeed unless three or four join forces.

Which Asian city's name comes from Sanskrit for 'Lion City', though lions are not native to the region?

Singapore is the English form of the Malay name Singapura. Legend credits a prince, Sang Nila Utama, who glimpsed a strange animal while hunting there and was told it must have been a lion.

What is the name of the tiger that shares a lifeboat with a shipwrecked boy in Yann Martel's Life of Pi?

Richard Parker owes his human name to a clerical error that swapped the cub's name, Thirsty, with that of the hunter who caught him. Pi survives 227 days at sea beside him.

Which Kellogg's breakfast cereal has had Tony the Tiger as its cartoon mascot since 1952?

Frosted Flakes also tried mascots named Katy the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu. One actor, Thurl Ravenscroft, went on to voice Tony for five decades.

Which city's Olympics had as mascot Hodori, a tiger whose name means roughly 'tiger boy'?

Seoul's 1988 mascot takes 'ho' from horangi, the Korean word for tiger, and 'dori' from a diminutive for boys. He had already fronted the 1986 Asian Games.

Which civilisation's military elite included jaguar warriors, who ranked alongside the eagle warriors?

The Aztecs made a soldier capture four enemies in battle before he could join the jaguar warriors. The cat was their emblem because it was believed to represent the god Tezcatlipoca.

Which lion-headed Egyptian goddess was tricked with red-dyed beer before she could wipe out humanity?

Sekhmet mistook the beer for blood, drank it all and became too drunk to carry on the slaughter. Egyptians blamed her for plagues, yet also called on her to heal the sick.

Which biblical figure was thrown to the lions for praying in defiance of King Darius's decree?

Daniel told the anxious king at daybreak that an angel had closed the lions' jaws. Jealous rivals had tricked Darius into banning prayer to anyone but himself for thirty days.

Which French carmaker's lion badge began in 1858 as a trademark for steel saw blades?

Peugeot first drew its lion walking on an arrow, to stand for the speed, strength and flexibility of the saws. The firm's first automobile, a steam three-wheeler, followed in 1889.

Which Gospel writer's emblem, a winged lion, became the symbol of the city of Venice?

Saint Mark's lion gives the Venice Film Festival its top prize, the Golden Lion. The wings come from the prophet Ezekiel's vision of four winged creatures, later matched to the four evangelists.

Which Las Vegas duo's white tiger show ended in 2003 when a tiger badly injured one of them?

Siegfried & Roy had given 5,750 performances when a seven-year-old white tiger named Mantacore attacked Roy Horn mid-show at The Mirage, where the pair had headlined since 1990.

Which Oklahoma zoo owner's feud with a big cat sanctuary founder became the Netflix series Tiger King?

Joe Exotic ran an animal park in Wynnewood from 1999 to 2018. A year later he was convicted of animal abuse and of plotting to have his rival, Carole Baskin, murdered.

Which Mughal emperor is said to have kept as many as 1,000 trained cheetahs for hunting?

Akbar reigned from 1556 to 1605, when tame cheetahs were so prized for coursing game that the species was long known in English as the 'hunting leopard'.

Which fossil site has yielded hundreds of Smilodon, the Ice Age sabre-toothed cat?

La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles trapped the cats in natural asphalt that has seeped from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Smilodon bones have been dug there since 1875.

Which Indian megacity has a national park within its limits that is famous for its leopards?

Mumbai is home to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, where a 2022 study found leopard density among the highest recorded for the species. The cats live beside one of the most crowded urban areas on Earth.

Which term, built on the Hindi word for 'foot', do Indian trackers use for a tiger's footprint?

A pugmark count was long the way to census tigers, but the method is considered unreliable for totalling a population and has given way to camera traps.

The cougar's closest living relative is which small, slender cat of Central and South America?

The jaguarundi is so close to the cougar that some authors have placed both in the genus Puma. The pair's nearest relative in turn is the cheetah.

Which mirror-like layer behind the retina gives big cats sharp night vision and a glowing gaze?

The tapetum lucidum bounces light back through the retina, giving the photoreceptors a second chance to catch it at the cost of a slightly blurred image.

What is the lip-curling grimace called that lions and tigers pull when analysing another animal's scent?

The flehmen response draws scent to the vomeronasal organ above the palate. The term was introduced in 1930 by Karl Max Schneider, a Leipzig zoo director and an authority on big cats in zoos.

What are the horn-like projections that line a big cat's tongue and rasp meat from a carcass called?

Papillae also serve as a comb when a cat grooms its coat. The same structures, in a far gentler form, give the human tongue its rough surface.

A cheetah cub's cape of long bluish-grey hair may protect it by mimicking which fierce small carnivore?

The honey badger is an animal most predators avoid, so a study suggested the cub's mantle works as a disguise. It may also hide the cub from the badgers themselves.

Which feature of the clouded leopard is the largest, in proportion to body size, of any living cat?

Its canine teeth, 4 cm or more in the upper jaw, have earned the clouded leopard the nickname 'modern-day sabre-tooth'.

Which small bone is only partly hardened in lions, tigers and jaguars, a trait that helps them roar?

The hyoid is incompletely ossified in every cat of the genus Panthera, and works with an elongated, specially adapted larynx to produce the roar.

What does every lion's tail end in, sometimes concealing a hard spur about 5 mm long?

A dark tuft of hair is missing at birth and only becomes easy to pick out when a cub is about seven months old. What the spur hidden inside it does is unknown.

Male lions with which kind of mane tend to father more cubs and keep their place in a group for longer?

Darker manes go with longer, thicker hair and higher testosterone, but the look has a price: those males suffer more from heat stress.

Which country's national flag shows a golden lion holding a sword in its right forepaw?

Sri Lanka calls it the Lion Flag, and the animal stands for the Sinhalese people. A temple mural shows a king carrying a sword-bearing lion banner on a campaign in 162 BC.

Which hunter of man-eating tigers and leopards gave his name to India's first national park?

Jim Corbett shot the Leopard of Rudraprayag and other man-eaters that had taken hundreds of victims, then turned to conservation and played a leading role in setting up the reserve.

Which part of a tiger's body carries a white spot, ringed with black, that it flashes at rivals?

Its ears carry the patches on their rear surface, and a tiger swivels them into view to send a signal. Mothers and cubs use the same display with each other.

Germany's 40,000-year-old 'Lion-man' statuette, half human and half lion, was carved from what?

Mammoth ivory, worked with a flint knife, went into the oldest confirmed statue ever discovered. It was unearthed in the Swabian Jura in 1939.

Which ancient city's Processional Way, leading to the Ishtar Gate, was lined with glazed-brick lions?

Babylon lined the route with about 120 lions, the animal of the goddess Ishtar. The gate itself added dragons for the god Marduk and bulls for Adad.

Which Mauryan emperor's pillar at Sarnath was crowned by the four lions that became India's state emblem?

Ashoka raised the column around 250 BCE, with four life-sized lions set back to back. In 1947 Jawaharlal Nehru proposed the sculpture as the model for the new nation's emblem.

Which name was given to the white tiger caught by the king of Rewa in 1951, ancestor of many in zoos?

Mohan was taken from the forest of Mukundpur, and many white tigers in zoos around the world descend from him. The last one seen in the wild was reportedly shot in 1958.

Which leopard subspecies, down to some 19–26 wild animals in 2007, does WWF call possibly the most endangered big cat?

The Amur leopard had recovered to roughly 130 animals by 2023, a count that keeps it on the brink. Its thick, pale winter fur sets it apart from every other leopard.

Which tiger population of the Caucasus and Central Asia was assessed as extinct in 2003?

The Caspian tiger clung on in sparse forests and along river corridors until the 1970s. Its decline began with Russian colonisation of Turkestan in the late 19th century.

What goal for wild tiger numbers did 13 countries set at a 2010 summit, with a deadline of 2022?

To double them was the pledge, nicknamed Tx2 and timed for the next Year of the Tiger. The starting point was an estimated 3,200 animals left in the wild.