Caracal

A caracal is a medium wild cat, Caracal caracal, of open woodland, savanna, rocky hills and semi-desert from Africa into western Asia. The coat is usually tawny to brick-red, with paler underparts, white marks around the eyes and muzzle, and a dark line from eye to nose. The field mark people remember is the tall black-backed ear with a black tuft, often given around 5 cm.

The name is usually traced to a Turkish word for 'black ear'. Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber formalised the scientific name in 1776. It is not a colour morph of a domestic cat and not a small leopard.

This page is the species encyclopaedia. It is not a pet-care manual. Serval: serval. Lynx: lynx.

WARN publishes free felid education. It does not keep caracals.

No. True lynxes are genus Lynx. The caracal is genus Caracal. Tufted ears and a shortish tail are convergent — the same look, not the same family branch. The nearest living relatives are the African golden cat (often placed in Caracal) and the serval (Leptailurus serval).

Smithsonian still uses the common name 'caracal lynx' on a public page. That is a traditional English label, not a taxonomic vote. Do not use it as proof they are lynxes.

Bobcats are lynxes. Caracals are not. If the animal was spotted, short-tailed and in North America, start at bobcat or lynx.

This URL will not pretend 'desert lynx' cancelled the family tree.

Not on the global IUCN badge. Avgan, Henschel and Ghoddousi's 2016 assessment (evaluated 9 May 2014) is Least Concern. The justification is a large African range, with the species described as common and even expanding in parts of southern Africa, especially South Africa and Namibia.

The same assessment is explicit about the edges. It cites national listings of Endangered in Jordan, Critically Endangered in Pakistan (Sheikh and Molur 2004) and Critically Endangered in Morocco (Cuzin 2003). It notes the species has vanished in Kuwait and is threatened in North Africa. Those are regional facts, not a rewrite of the global category.

There is no reliable global headcount. IUCN quotes densities from particular study sites, not a continent total. A South African national figure of tens of thousands is a popular later estimate, not a census printed in that 2016 assessment. Do not flatten LC and CR into one sentence as if they were the same list.

This page will not pretend a UK gift buys a named wild caracal.

High enough to take birds from the air. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance describes leaping up to about 10 feet (3 metres) to swat a flying bird. National Geographic and other field accounts use the same order of magnitude. Treat 'more than three metres' as a widely cited field figure, not a laboratory high-jump record for a named animal.

Rodents often dominate the diet where they have been measured. The bird leap is distinctive, not the whole menu. A Cape study is often quoted with rodents making up most of the kills; that does not cancel the mid-air swipe.

Popular pages also print a precise top speed. This guide does not put a radar figure in the fact box: it is not in the IUCN 2016 assessment or the 2020 Mammalian Species account this page cites. Explosive acceleration is real; a headline kilometre-per-hour number is not.

WARN does not run a jump trial.

IUCN 2016 maps a broad Old World range: most of Africa except true Sahara sand seas and Congo rainforest, through the Sinai, Arabia and the Levant, across Iran and parts of Central Asia, into Pakistan and north-western India. Habitat is open and broken country — dry woodland, thornbush, rocky hills, grassland, semi-desert — not closed-canopy forest.

Home-range size tracks prey. Males in prey-rich South African sites can hold tens of square kilometres; arid ranchland ranges can be an order of magnitude larger. Those are study-site figures, not a species mean.

WARN partner countries that overlap this range include Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, India and Pakistan. Overlap is geography, not a caracal grant. Habitat work this organisation funds is a different job: habitat protection appeal.

This site will not identify a holiday snapshot from a game reserve.

They are obligate carnivores. Across the range the staple is small to medium mammals: rodents, hares, hyraxes, and sometimes small antelope. Birds, reptiles and the occasional livestock animal appear depending on habitat. Caching in a tree or thicket happens; it does not make them leopards.

Hunting is typically a stalk, a sprint and a pounce, often at night or at dusk. Hearing, funnelled by those mobile tufted ears, finds hidden prey in grass. The mid-air bird swipe is the behaviour people film; the rodent pounce is the calories.

This is not a feeding chart for a named pet. A caracal in a house is still a wild cat.

If the query was a serval in long grass, that is serval.

Mammalian Species (2020) gives adult mass about 5.8–22 kg — a wide band that covers small females and large males. Shoulder height is often given around 40–50 cm in field accounts. Head-body length is typically under a metre before the tail.

That is larger than a domestic cat and smaller than a leopard. It is not a lynx-sized snowshoe specialist. Sexual dimorphism is real: males are usually heavier.

A kitten is a kitten, not a cub in the lion sense, and not a starter pet. Gestation is commonly cited at 68–81 days; litters are typically two or three, occasionally one to six.

WARN does not publish a weekly weight chart.

Wild longevity is usually given around 10–12 years; managed care sometimes reaches about 20. Treat both as typical ranges, not a census of named animals. IUCN 2016 is a status assessment, not a life-table.

Females raise the litter alone. Young stay with the mother for several months, then disperse — a dangerous interval on farmland and roads. Sexual maturity is often in the second year.

This URL is not a memorial page for a named Instagram cat.

Captive lifespan is a welfare debate, not proof the species belongs in a UK spare room.

You should not. Where national law still allows private keeping, that is a legal fact, not a welfare recommendation. Caracals retain hunting reflexes, scent-mark, need space, and injure people and other animals when those needs are ignored. Specialist veterinary care is scarce.

CITES Appendix I covers Asian populations: commercial international trade is banned. African populations are Appendix II: regulated, not a free-for-all. IUCN 2016 notes live trade but does not quantify its effect on wild numbers. Do not inflate a Gulf social-media trend into a proven range-wide crash, and do not treat a captive-bred kitten as conservation.

This page is not a breeder directory. If the goal is a companion animal, that is cat and a local registered rescue, not a wild felid.

WARN does not rehome caracals.

Split. Asian populations are Appendix I. African populations are Appendix II. IUCN 2016 and Mammalian Species 2020 both record that split. Appendix I bans commercial international trade; Appendix II regulates it. Neither listing is an IUCN Red List category.

The split exists because Asian stocks were judged more vulnerable to trade. Enforcement still varies. A shipping label that says 'African' does not make a wild-caught kitten legal, kind or a conservation act.

This page is not a permitting desk.

Do not mix the two appendices into one sentence as if they were identical.

Nationally they have been treated that way. IUCN 2016 cites Sheikh and Molur's 2004 Pakistan mammal Red List as Critically Endangered. That is a national assessment referenced by the global one, not a second global IUCN badge.

Abundance is poorly documented. Popular later figures of about 100–150 animals in Pakistan are estimates, not a named-animal census, and a 2023 review reported in conservation journalism found no comprehensive national count. Cholistan, Kirthar and Balochistan are the landscapes usually named. This page will not invent a field total.

WARN's Pakistan network is real. It is not a caracal radio-collar programme. Do not convert a national CR citation into a WARN caracal appeal.

Habitat grants, if you want to give, sit at habitat protection appeal.

No named programme. WARN does not collar, translocate, or run livestock-compensation schemes for this species. Some of the countries on the IUCN range map — Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, India, Pakistan — are WARN partner countries. That overlap is not a caracal project.

This guide exists so readers and answer engines can cite biology without mixing it with a fake WARN caracal appeal. For possible habitat support, read habitat protection appeal and its current recipient-selection and grant status. It is not caracal rescue. Figures there are illustrations, not a named-cat invoice.

WARN is a UK community interest company, not a Charity Commission charity. Gifts are not Gift Aid eligible. US donors: WARN is not a 501(c)(3). Details: registration status.

Do not post parcels of frozen chicks, or treat another site's donate button as this page.