Ocelot

The beautiful Ocelot is a wild cat of the Americas. Leopardus Pardalis, it is also known as ‘Painted Leopard’, ‘Manigordo’ and ‘McKenney’s Wild Cat’. Twice as large as a domestic cat, it can be nearly five feet long (including tail) and weigh around twenty five to thirty pounds.

Ocelot’s fur resembles that of Jaguar according to many people’s opinion though to me it looks more like a small clouded leopard. Coat varies in color from cream/yellow in dry areas to dark yellow/brown in densely forested habitats. Markings are irregular, dark brown with a black border, in the form of spots and stripes along the body length. A nocturnal cat, Ocelot is often seen resting in tree branches and is known as a good swimmer. It is a very territorial feline and fiercely defends its territory from intruders - often fighting till death!

Predominantly a terrestrial hunter, Ocelot usually takes down smaller prey animals including rodents, monkeys, small deer and fish. It has a keen nocturnal vision and is also believed to use scent to track down prey. A solitary cat, Ocelot can have a range of several square miles in the wild. They have a long gestational period as a specie and produce a small litter with slow maturation and high death rate among kittens - something that does not help their numbers in the wild.

Historically Ocelots have been widely hunted and prized for their coat. Young cubs were also trapped and mothers killed, to steal them for the ‘pet’ industry. Afterwards they were de-clawed, de-fanged and de-scented to make them ‘better pets’ for humans! In the 1980s they were classified as endangered and thereafter the Ocelot trade lessened. Today they flourish again in parts of South and Central America, though certain subspecies including the Texan Ocelot, Leopardus Pardalis Albescens, is still classified as endangered by the IUCN!

The author is a blogger about cats and an expert on ocelot.

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Help! My Cat is Keeping Me Awake.

“My cat is awake all night, full of energy and is stopping me from getting any sleep. It’s driving me nuts!Most cats spend a good part of their daylight hours sleeping, they like nothing better than finding a warm spot and enjoying a little snooze.

The trouble is that some cats are wide-awake when night falls and are full of vim and vigor, if your cat is one that could mean broken sleep or even entirely sleepless nights for you. And that’s no joke, you need your sleep so you can be bright eyed and bushy tailed for work in the morning. You are embarrassed about being constantly bleary eyed and yawning at your desk!

So, are you sharing your home with an evil feline, a cat that has a secret agenda to torment you with sleep deprivation? No, it’s not really your cat’s fault. In their natural state cats are nocturnal hunters, they stalk their prey at night. Centuries ago cats ventured into human settlements because where there was humans there were rodents. This arrangement was good for both parties, good hunting for the cats and the humans had the rodent problem solved for them.

Years later the rodent problem was not so acute for humans but many found that they enjoyed the company of cats. Cats began to be kept as pets and the humans fed their feline pets so there was no need for them to hunt for their food. But the hunting instinct remains with the cats to this day . . . and so does the nocturnal instinct.

“OK, cats are naturally active at night but I really need my sleep. What can I do?”

This problem most usually affects “indoor only” cats because cats that have access to the outdoors via a pet door can slip out at night and satisfy their hunting instincts. But you may have many reasons why you prefer to keep your cat indoors.

Do you play with your cat? You should, playing is fun both for you and your cat and helps increase the bond between the two of you.

If your cat’s night energy is causing you to lose sleep try a play session with your cat shortly before you go to bed, this may just tire out your cat so she or he is not so active.

Involve interactive cat toys, the fishing pole type and the toy mouse on a string variety, roll a ball for your cat to chase. Don’t overdo it the object is not to exhaust your kitty but get rid of excess energy. At first your cat may only be interested in playing for a few minutes, that’s okay try playing a little longer the next night.

The energy that your cat spends playing represents the energy a cat would spend hunting, and at the end of a hunt, a successful one anyway, is a meal. So feed your cat a small meal after the play session. In this way you are recreating your cat’s natural nocturnal habits and it just may mean she or he will be a little less active at night.

Don’t expect this to work instantly, you will need to patiently keep trying, good luck.

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