Cougar kittens, Puma concolor.Image: WL Miller/US National Park Service (public domain).

 

If you like housecats, you probably love BIG cats! And if that’s the case, then you will love this caturday morning video smile that captures the various sounds made by big cats!

 

“Big cat” is not a precise biological term, it is just a verbal shorthand for distinguishing the larger members of the taxonomic family Felidae from smaller ones. Some people formally define “big cats” as the fourPanthera species: the tiger, lion, jaguar, and leopard. But other people also include cheetah, snow leopard, clouded leopard, and cougar under the “big cat” umbrella.

Big cats make interesting sounds. For example, only Panthera can roar. For this reason, they are collectively often known as “the roaring cats”. Roaring requires special morphology of the larynx and hyoid apparatus in the animal’s throat. Interestingly, despite having hyoid morphology similar to roaring cats, snow leopards cannot roar.

Here’s a collection of some sounds that big (and not so big) cats can make:

Visit BigCatRescue‘s YouTube channel [video link].

Big Cat Rescue is a non-profit educational sanctuary that is home to over 100 unwanted, abandoned or abused exotic big cats. Big Cat Rescue is on facebook and can also be found on twitter @BigCatRescue

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/dec/03/1

twitter: @GrrlScientist
facebook: grrlscientist