melanistic jungle cat

March 2, 2015.

Lovely photos! Out of interest, did you see all the species there? And how easy are they to see? Thanks

I still have to remind myself how rare they are now - I grew up with them just up the road at Riber. Interestingly, it seems to me that as they've got rarer the proportion of melanistic animals seems to have increased - it was a long time before I saw one and now pretty much every second animal seems to be melanistic.

EDIT: OK, I'll bite - Jungle Cat, presumably Iberian Lynx as as far as I'm aware you've never (yet) set foot on the Iberian peninsula - what's the third?

Ah - might have known it'd be a trick!

I've not seen that or the lynx yet, either (but I have seen Jungle Cats many times!).

*pulls sceptical face*

I volunteered regularly at Riber in the '90s (I actually did my Year 10 work experience there!) and nowhere in conversation at the park or in its literature have I seen or heard any reference at all to Iberian Lynx or any lynx coming from Spain - despite the guide and signage boasting about their history lynx at length and specifically mentioning a number of forms, up to and including including the not-actually-a-lynx Caracal. Would be interested to know the source for the Zootierliste listing, and if the animal was identified as such as the time.

@zootiger - I have been to Europe and Parc Felins on four different trips, spending a total of seven days at the park. In all that time I have not once seen their clouded leopards, which seem to hide in their den box during the day. All the other cats I have seen and most are quite easy to see. The only other difficult ones are the Malayan tigers which have a very dense forest with only one viewpoint on the corner, but they do come out to the clearing at the end of the day.

And since we are discussing missed cat opportunities from the past, I will never live down the fact that I did not make it to Port Lympne before their African golden cats died out. At least I got there to get good shots of Indian wildcat (aka desert cat) as it seems these are now gone as well and likely impossible to find in western zoos.