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| Short-tailed felids; Why some felid species are short-tailed | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 8 2018, 08:51 AM (268 Views) | |
| Claudiu Constantin Nicolaescu | Mar 8 2018, 08:51 AM Post #1 |
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Heterotrophic Organism
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I would like to know your opinion on this subject: why some living (genus Lynx, genus Caracal, genus Leptailurus) and extinct (genus Smilodon) felids are short-tailed?
Edited by Claudiu Constantin Nicolaescu, Mar 8 2018, 09:08 AM.
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| K9 Bite | Mar 8 2018, 12:12 PM Post #2 |
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Herbivore
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Not sure but imo I see short tailed felids looking more robust...like they have a bear or tank like build though that's just my opinion, have no evidence to back it up.
Edited by K9 Bite, Mar 9 2018, 01:10 AM.
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| Taipan | Mar 8 2018, 07:57 PM Post #3 |
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Administrator
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For Smilodon spp. the thought was that the short tail evolved as they did not chase prey, but heavily reliant on ambush. (But I'm a bit unsure on that one) |
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| K9 Bite | Mar 9 2018, 01:15 AM Post #4 |
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Herbivore
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Don't most cats rely heavily on ambush? It's what they're basically built for. Exceptions are maybe lions and cheetahs but they don't excatly chase prey for a huge amount of time/distance like canids. A curious observation i made is today only small to medium cats have short tails while larger cats like pumas and upwards all have the typical cat shape, with a long tail. |
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| Claudiu Constantin Nicolaescu | Mar 9 2018, 04:23 PM Post #5 |
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Heterotrophic Organism
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There are also domestic cat (Felis catus) breeds (Manx cat, Japanese bobtail), which are tailless. |
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9:51 AM Jul 11