Alaskan Snow cat

Not the Alaskan Snow Cat - no - but a cat in the snow enjoying himself - this is the nearest I can get (except for the Somali cat below) to a picture of the Snow Cat. Photo by ~Jetta Girl~ His name is Sonny.

The Alaskan Snow cat is an experimental cat breed, we are told. The other name for this proposed breed of purebred cat is the Snow cat. I cannot find a picture so I decided to have some fun instead. Are these the pawprints of a Snow cat>>>>?

We shouldn't get this cat breed mixed up with another cat breed whose name is also associated with the snow because of the color of the fur, namely the Snowshoe cat, which is a fully registered and recognized cat breed: see the Snowshoe cat.

The Snow cat is a cross between a Silver Persian and a Somali. The Somali is an Abyssinian cat with long hair. see the Somali cat. Persian cats are either bred to an extremely flat face (the Persian that competes at cat shows) or are a Traditional Doll Face Persian (click here too see a fantastic white Doll Face Persian called Yeri). People prefer the traditional look as far as I can tell or at least the poll on this page says that.

An example of a Silver Persian cat of the traditional kind can be seen here: Chinchilla Persian cat. We know what the parents of the Alaskan Snow cat might look like (if you've clicked on the links), so we might be able to guess what this experimental breed might look like. The target is a Somali type cat with the heavy (the CFA Persian breed standard calls it "massive") rounded head and heavier bones of the Ultra Persian.

Is there anyone out there who has bred an Alaskan Snow Cat? If so please post a picture by filling in the form on this page:- Have a Say - it would be great.

Photo montage of a Silver Somali in the snow
am I correct? Nearest I can get
- photo by couleurs gm

Alaskan Snow cat to Home page

Photo of paw prints in the cool blue snow: Photo by by lndhslf72 and published under a creative commons license = Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. The header photo and the montage are published under the same license.

Lungworm in cats

Lungworm in cats and dogs is in the news, surprisingly. The Daily Mail (UK newspaper) announced that when cats (and dogs) eat garden snails they might ingest the lungworm and suffer the consequences. As the summer has been so wet there have been more cases of lungworm infections of cats, so say PDSA veterinarians and that is why lungworm in cats is in the news. We always find a way to talk about the weather.

I have never heard of a cat eating a snail unless it is cooked and the cat is French. This then is an oversimplification.

Out of several different species, there are two types of lungworm that affect cats. They are thin and about one centimeter in length, in old numbers that means a little less than half an inch. One of them has the Latin name Aelurostrongylus abstrusus (a bit of a mouthful!). This is the lungworm most commonly found in cats but still uncommonly encountered.

Lungworm in cats - Lungworm lifecycle - a modern day saga

The life cycle of this more common lungworm in cats is uncommon. The worm is passed in cat feces. From there it is ingested by snails. From there the snail is eaten by a bird or rodent. From there the cat catches and eats the bird or rodent. From there the eggs hatch in the cats intestine and then adults migrate to the lungs in the bloodstream. In the lungs the lungworms lay eggs. These eggs migrate up (coughed up) to the windpipe. From the windpipe they are ingested into the stomach and then passed in feces and so the cycle restarts. Phew.........!

Symptoms

The majority of cats show no symptoms of the presence of lungworms. Of those that do they have a chronic dry cough that is in fact not due to the lungworm but a secondary bacterial infection.

Other symptoms are:

---fever
---weight loss
---nasal discharge
---wheezing

That is where we hand over to a veterinarian.

Lungworm in cats to cat health problems

Lungworm in cats - Sources:

1. Daily Mail
2. Cat Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook by Drs Carlson and Giffin

Sorry no pictures of lungworms available.

Iranian Cheetah

I've just been reading about the Iranian Cheetah Society. There are about 70-100 Iranian Cheetahs. It seems like an impossibly small population. Before 1940 they say that the population was at around 400. The Cheetahs major range is in Africa specifically Namibia (see Cheetah habitat).

What comes strongly through when reading about the Iranian Cheetah is that the key to the conservation of the species is education and this point is made clear on Iranian Cheetah Society's website.

They recently reported the case of a family of cheetah, mother and 3 cubs who had arrived at a water hole in Bafq Protected Area. Some local people attacked the family. The mother ran off and two cheetah cubs were killed (can you imagine, such a rare animal and two precious, adorable cubs killed for no reason). Fortunately one cub was saved and is now at a sanctuary. Of course the people are fearful of big wild cats both for themselves and their livestock but the education program instigated and run by the Iranian Cheetah Society is designed to enlighten people to enable them to enable them to share the habitat with the cheetah, to try and live in harmony with the cheetah and surely this is the objective for all of us.

This means be able to identify the cheetah and taking out insurance policies to compensate them when a cheetah kills livestock for example. Unfortunately, due to human population growth and as is the case in Namibia, the cheetah is forced to live on a farm and that will bring certain conflict.

Some people in the USA could learn from this. Sometimes the Western countries are a little arrogant and think they know best and are doing best. This is not necessarily the case. In the US people still hunt and kill the precious Cougar or Mountain Lion. Sport hunting of any creature never mind the Cougar is outmoded, outdated and should be considered barbaric today.

One other thing, the Iranian Cheetah Society are in fact concerned with the conservation of the 5 major species, all carnivores, the cheetah being one. The others are the Persian Leopard, grey wolf, striped hyena and the brown bear.

The cheetah habitat is in 6 regions in Iran:

Khar Turan National Park
Miandasht Wildlife Refuge
Kavir National Park
Daranjir Wildlife Refuge
Bafq Protected Area
Naybandan Wildlife Refuge

Iranian Cheetah to Florida Cougar

Ocelot habitat

Forest is the ocelot habitat. The forests are found in the areas indicated on the maps below. This is a Central and South American wildcat species. The type of forest varies: tropical and subtropical forest, tropical evergreen forest, dry thorn forest, semideciduous forest. The ocelot habitat also includes: mangrove and flooded savanna, abandoned cultivated areas turned to brush.


Ocelot range - map published under a Wikimedia commons license (see below)

This is another range or distribution map based on the Red List map:


View Ocelot Range 2009 in a larger map

The Ocelot habitat extends from the countries of South America through Central America and up into Mexico and even as far north as small regions of Texas where this wild cat's habitat comes to an end and mankind's habitat begins in earnest. When human population reaches a certain level it pushes out wild animals through habitat destruction usually due to commerce, the car, hunting etc.

In the USA the Texas Ocelot is considered "vulnerable" (VU) under the IUCN 2006 Red List (a list prepared to summarise the risk of extinction in the wild of species). Vulnerable means this cat is threatened in Texas. In the other Ocelot habitats the cat is considered "least concern" (at 2006) under IUCN. This chart shows the categries. Least concern is the "safest" (my word) form of status under the IUCN classification:



The Ocelot Habitat once extended to a landscape called the "Chaparral" in the US (gulf coast - Texas).

Another ocelot habitat is the back yards of people's homes in the USA as a number of people have domesticated the Ocelot. This wild cat is not much larger than a large domestic cat (see largest domestic cat breeds) and is therefore suitable for domestication if one believes in that sort of thing. Another wild cat that has been domesticated is the Serval.

Here is a picture of an example of Ocelot habitat:

Costa Rica - Paos Lagoon
Photo by by chrisulloa

Ocelot Habitat to Ocicat

• Picture of Ocelot habitat and range at heading - Made starting with Brion VIBBER's maps - see Wikipedia license.
• Picture of Costa Rica published under a creative commons license = Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Accicat

Ocicat photo by Helmi Flick

This word Accicat is very close to the word Ocicat, which it should be because they are the names of the same cat. The breed being the result of an accidental piece of breeding. I guess Accicat could be extended to Accidental cat. Ocicat as you might know comes from the wild cat name Ocelot. The Ocelot is a wild cat that is a little larger than a big domestic cat and mostly lives in South America. 

If you'd like to see more about the Accicat the cat that became the Ocicat (and see the best pictures probably anywhere - see for yourself), then click on the following link: Ocicat 

Shapira. Photo: @Starrlight

From Accicat to Home page