Margay Photos

Here are two fine margay photos by Arjan Haverkamp. He is a photographer who publishes his photographs on Flickr.  He kindly agreed to allow me to publish these photos here. Please ask him if you want to use them.

The margay is a small, tree dwelling wildcat with an enormous climbing ability. They spend a lot of the time in trees. One radio collared margay rested during the day in a palm tree 7 meters off the ground. 

Margay - Photo copyright Arjan Haverkamp

They are extremely agile and acrobatic climbers. They demonstrate a monkey-like ability when traveling through trees.  They can jump 8 feet straight up and 12 feet horizontally. They descend trees head first. The margay can hang from branches from their hind feet and grab with their front paws at the same time. 

Their hind feet are adapted to climbing in a special way. They can rotate inwards 180 degrees. Their eyesight is excellent. They can spot a fly at 30 feet¹. You can see the size of their eyes in these photos. They are like large, glossy, dark marbles. Their long tails provide stability and balance. You can see the tail wrapped around the paws in the photo above. Their slender frame provides a high power to weight ratio.

Margay - Photo copyright Arjan Haverkamp

Note: (1) Wild Cats of the World - ISBN-13: 978-0-226-77999-7