The jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) seems to lack distinction, at least to human eyes. It doesn’t have spots or stripes. It’s not an exceptional climber. It’s not endangered, or endemic to any one region. At 4-7 kilograms (9-16 pounds), it’s neither the biggest cat in the Americas, nor the smallest, nor even the biggest of the small cats. In fact, with its small head, round pupils, tiny round ears, sleek body and audaciously long tail, it doesn’t even look all that much like a cat. “Some people say it looks more like an otter,” says Arturo Caso, president of Predator Conservation, who, for his Ph.D. research, conducted one of the very few radio-collar studies of jaguarundi. “It’s — how can I say — not very attractive!” Yet researchers all across the jaguarundi’s range, stretching from Mexico to northern Argentina, are captivated by the animal. “They’re a bit of a puzzle, a little bit of an enigma,” says Anthony Giordano, director of S.P.E.C.I.E.S., a carnivore conservation nonprofit. They are distinct in “how they relate to other cats — their behavior, where they sit ecologically in the food chain … how they’ve been shaped by evolutionary forces.” A jaguarundi in the semiarid thorn shrub-woodland of the Brazilian Caatinga. The jaguarundi’s coat can be a yellowish-red, gray, brownish-black — or numerous shades in between. Though some coat colors tend to be more common in certain areas, there’s no clear geographic distinction between the various color morphs. “I call it the multicolored cat of tropical…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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