Caracal auratus
(Temminck, 1825)
African Golden Cat
Taxonomy
| Subclass | : Theria |
| Infraclass | : Placentalia |
| Magnorder | : Boreoeutheria |
| Superorder | : Laurasiatheria |
| Order | : Carnivora |
| Suborder | : Feliformia |
| Infraorder | : Aeluroidea |
| Superfamily | : Feloidea |
| Family | : Felidae |
| Subfamily | : Felinae |
| Genus | : Caracal |
Species status
Authority citation
Temminck, C.J. 1825-04-09. Livraison 4. Pp. 73–156 in Temminck, C.J. 1827. Monographies de Mammalogie. G. Dufour et E. d'Ocagne, Paris, 268 pp.
Authority publication link
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/52681266Original name as described
Felis aurata
Type material
RMNH.MAM.19633
Type kind
holotype
Type specimen URI
https://data.biodiversitydata.nl/naturalis/specimen/RMNH.MAM.19633Type locality
West Africa. Probably from the coastal region of Lower Guinea.
Biogeographic realm
Afrotropic
Country distribution
Angola · Cameroon · Central African Republic · Republic of the Congo · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Cote d'Ivoire · Equatorial Guinea · Gabon · Ghana · Guinea · Liberia · Nigeria · Sierra Leone · Uganda · Benin? · Burundi? · Gambia? · Guinea-Bissau? · Kenya? · Rwanda? · Senegal? · Sudan? · Togo?
Taxonomy notes
moved from Profelis to Caracal; year of publication of the original description is actually 1825, although it is usually referenced as 1827. Epithet changed from aurata to auratus to match the masculine gender of Caracal, since the Code requires changing the gender of the specific epithet to match the genus if it is an adjective and not a noun in apposition (Art. 34.2.1 and 31.2.1). The gender of Caracal could not be determined (possibly from Turkish, which lacks gender, and Gray 1843 did not specify a gender: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53729649), so we applied Art. 30.2.4 of the Code, which states that a genus-group name is to be treated as masculine if its gender cannot be inferred directly. While aurata was named under Felis (feminine), it is now under Caracal (indet. = masculine) so changed to auratus.Taxonomy notes citation
Johnson, W.E., Eizirik, E., Pecon-Slattery, J., Murphy, W.J., Antunes, A., Teeling, E. and O'Brien, S.J. 2006. The Late Miocene radiation of modern Felidae: A genetic assessment. Science 311(5757):73-77. doi:10.1126/science.1122277 · Werdelin, L., Yamaguchi, N., Johnson, W.E. and O'Brien, S.J. 2010. Phylogeny and evolution of cats (Felidae). Pp. 59–82 in Macdonald, D.W. and Loveridge, A.J. (eds.). Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids. Oxford University Press. a#18073 · Kitchener, A.C., Breitenmoser-Würsten, C., Eizirik, E., Gentry, A., Werdelin, L., Wilting, A., Yamaguchi, N., Abramov, A.V., Christiansen, P., Driscoll, C.A., Duckworth, J.W., Johnson, W., Luo, S.-j., Meijaard, E., O'Donoghue, P., Sanderson, J., Seymour, K., Bruford, M., Groves, C.P., Hoffmann, M., Nowell, K., Timmons, Z. and Tobe, S.S. 2017. A revised taxonomy of the Felidae. The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN/ SSC Cat Specialist Group. Cat News Special Issue 11:1-80. a#35407 · Kitchener, A.C., Simo, F.T., Mugerwa, B. and Sanderson, J.G. 2022. Evidence that Temminck described Felis aurata in 1825, not 1827. Archives of Natural History 49(1):78-85. doi:10.3366/anh.2022.0759
IUCN Red List status
Not Evaluated
Species Permalink
https://mammaldiversity.org/taxon/1005980Country distribution map
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Names and synonyms
Present and past (if available) associated names to the species. Click on a name to view its details. If the list is long, scroll down to see more.
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