The Amur River forms a border between Russia and China, and its name also is given to a variety of local wildlife and plant species.
But the Wikipedia disambiguation page, at the time of writing, does not list the little Amur cat.
The little spotted cat
Yep, it’s a leopard cat — a subspecies that generally has grown a bit chonky to fend off the Siberian chill and whose coat has toned down the tropical orange and become light tan to gray in order to blend into this new environment.
Well, it varies from individual to individual. Here you can definitely see the leopard cat heritage —
— and here, the built-in chonkiness and lightened coat:
I wish we had confirmation of how Nabi did upon her return to the wild.
Okay, this tropical cat can adjust to Siberia. How does it cope with all that snow?
Well, it can’t. Such short legs mean that Amur leopard cats stay close to the coast and in other areas where snow cover doesn’t get very deep.
There isn’t a lot of information online, outside of Academia, about this rare subspecies. Here is some of what I found.
More information:
- Abstract of a paper noting an increase in the number of wild Amur leopard cats.
- A paper describing treatment and rehab of an Amur leopard cat that was badly injured by traffic. (Jargon and detailed surgical/medical descriptions, but heartwarming, nonetheless. ❤ )
- An article with pics of three other cats, two of them pantherines, that this hardy little cat shares a trail with in Russia’s Land of the Leopard Park.
The spotted big cat
Rather, the spotted big cat in Eurasia and Africa — but this leopard, surprisingly, is in Siberia and wintery China.
That was seven years ago. Now, the WWF reports that there are at least 120 adults out there — still critically low, but the numbers are moving in the right direction.
There’s a bit of a snow-leopard look to Amur leopards, with their thicker fur and floofy tail, but these northern cats still look like leopards.
They haven’t evolved the dramatic adaptations that many Amur leopard cats now show.
There are about 220 Amur leopards in captivity (Source).
Here are a couple of adorable cubs at the San Diego Zoo:
The goal is to rewild as many Amur leopards as possible, and in May 2023 reportedly it began, with three of the big cats introduced to Land of the Leopard park.
Good! It would be wonderful to know that those remote hills might soon be echoing with more calls like this —
— and many scenes like these!
More information:
Lagniappe:
Meanwhile, in Cincinatti:
Featured image:
Flight To Wonder 