African Caracal Cat Description
Caracal Physical Characteristics
Size
The Caracal is the largest of Africa's smaller cats, weighing between 11 and 20 kgs, and is classed as a 'medium-sized' cat. Males are about 25% larger than the females.
Body
The African Caracal is robustly built and is the most powerful of the small cats. Its hindquarters are slightly higher than its shoulders as the hind legs are longer than the front legs. The tail is short relative to its body length.
Coat
The plain coat of the Caracal cat is thick but short and soft. The colour varies from yellowish-brown, pale reddish to a rich brick-red, grey or sand-coloured. The underparts are off-white with faint spotting or blotching. Caracals are one of the few cat species that don't have any spots or stripes. Melanistic (black) Caracals also occur.
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Caracal Facial Characteristics
Head
The Caracal's face has striking black and white markings around the eyes and mouth, with white under the chin.
Ears
One of the most prominent features of the Caracal cat are its ears. These cats have large, pointed ears with tufts of long black hair at the tip. The backs of the ears are black and liberally sprinkled with white hairs. The Caracal's ears are one of the most distinctive among the ears of all ten African wild cats.
Although ear tufts are traits of lynxes, and the Caracal is often referred to as a lynx, it is not closely related to the true lynxes of Europe and North America.
What Are the Caracal's Ear Tufts For?
The caracal's long, black ear tufts are one of its most distinctive features, but exactly why they evolved remains something of a mystery. Several theories have been proposed. One possibility is visual communication: caracals are largely solitary animals, and the conspicuous black tufts may make movements of the ears easier for another caracal to detect, particularly when individuals are interacting at relatively close range. The Mammalian Species account of the caracal notes that the prominent ear markings have been suggested to play a role in intraspecific communication, and caracals are known to flick, twist and turn their ears when responding to threats or interacting with other individuals.
Other suggestions are that the tufts may help break up the outline of the head, providing a degree of camouflage among vegetation, or perhaps discourage insects from approaching the face. These latter explanations are frequently mentioned by zoological institutions, although there is considerably less evidence supporting them.
The caracal's ears themselves are extremely important for hunting, with highly mobile ears allowing the cat to locate sounds and pinpoint prey, but this should not be confused with evidence that the tufts themselves have an auditory function. In fact, the precise function of the tufts has never been demonstrated experimentally. For now, communication is the leading scientific hypothesis, but it is best described as a plausible explanation rather than a proven function.
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Caracal Identification
Overall Caracals are about the size of a medium sized dog and have a plain coat. The only other wild cats in Africa with plain coats are Lions and African Golden Cats. However, Lions tend to be paler in colour and even though a juvenile Lion would be the height of an adult Caracal at some point in its early life, its overall appearance would be far more robust. The clues to look for are the tail and the ears - the Caracal's ears are large and triangular with long tufts and a Lion's ears are small and rounded. Lion tails are long and thin with a black tuft on the end, whereas a Caracal has a short, thicker tail, with no tuft.
African Golden Cats can look very similar to Caracals in size and appearance, except again for the ears. However, these species occur in totally different habitats and their ranges do not overlap. The African Golden Cat is very secretive, lives in the forests of Central Africa and is rarely seen, whereas Caracals occur more widely across Africa, predominately in open savannah.
When catching a glimpse of wildlife in the bush it is often difficult to identify an animal, especially if lighting is poor, or you do not see the full animal. The pointers above will help you confirm whether what you saw was a Caracal cat.
Caracals in the north tend to be paler and smaller than those in the south.
Geographic Variation in Caracal Appearance
Although Caracals have a remarkably distinctive appearance, their physical characteristics can vary noticeably across their enormous range, which extends from southern Africa through eastern and northern Africa, the Middle East and Arabian Peninsula, and into Central and South Asia.
One of the most obvious differences is coat color. The typical Caracal has a short, dense coat ranging from tawny or sandy brown to reddish-brown or rich brick-red, but the shade appears to be influenced partly by local climate and habitat. Individuals living in regions with low rainfall generally tend to have paler coats than those from wetter areas. This is particularly apparent in the more arid northern parts of the species' range, where a sandy or pale buff coloration can provide useful camouflage among dry grasses, rocky terrain and desert-edge habitats. By contrast, Caracals in southern Africa are often a deeper reddish or rufous brown. Females are also generally somewhat paler than males.
Body size varies geographically as well as between the sexes. The largest Caracals are found in southern Africa, while some of the smallest individuals occur in Israel and the Sahara region. Caracals in India are also described as somewhat smaller than those of sub-Saharan Africa, giving some Asian populations a noticeably more slender appearance. Across the species' range, reported adult weights span approximately 5.8–22 kg, illustrating the considerable variation that can occur between populations. Southern African Caracals are consequently often relatively robust, muscular animals, whereas Caracals from parts of the Middle East and Asia may appear more lightly built. These differences should not, however, be treated as rigid distinctions between populations.
Interestingly, Caracals can occasionally be almost completely black. Melanistic individuals are extremely rare, but have been reported in Kenya and Uganda, with older accounts documenting black individuals.