#felids

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My friend, are you, too, dappled with the textures of your rocky mountains?

[ID: digital illustration of an Andean cat and a snow leopard in a purple background, framed with various details in gold. The felids seem to be coming down from the heights, looking towards each other, you can see their similarly grey pelts, the Andean cat's painted with elongated, brown and purple spots, and the snow leopard's with blocky, dark purple ones. Each cat has a bright yellow spark behind them, and there's a big rhomboid star between the two. There are less vibrant stars scattered in the background. The frame shows mountains at the top and the bottom; the ones at the top are four from the Himalaya: Nanda Devi, Dhaulagiri, Kachenjunga and Mount Everest. At the bottom, the Andes are represented by three mountains: Ojos del Salado, Huascarán and Nevado Tres Cruces. The corners at the top have a Siberian ibex and a chinchilla each, reversed at the bottom, these are prey to these cats. On the sides, a plant, a star, a sun and a moon, divided by zigzags, decorate the frame. Their respective scientific names are written in square letters: Leopardus jacobitus for the Andean cat and Panthera uncia for the snow leopard, with a paw print after each one. End ID]

I was thinking the other day how similar these two are, despite being apart both taxonomically and spatially, and this idea would not leave my head until I finished it, so here :]

The cub lived for only a few weeks, and yet it never knew how important it will become in the far future. Thank you, little cat, for giving us another glimpse of your beautiful species that once roamed the Earth.

Scottish Wildcat and Scottish Wildkittens. Once widespread across Great Britain, this population of European wildcats is now only found in northern and eastern Scotland. They’re threatened by habitat loss, hunting, and hybridized with domestic cats.

This is gonna be the postcard for February’s Creature Mail!

Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), family Felidae (felids/'cats')

Bobcat (Lynx rufus) having caught a gopher