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12/22/2024 06:32:50 pm

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Extremely Rare African Golden Cat Seen on Video

African golden cat

(Photo : Wikipedia) The African golden cat is related to the bobcat.

The elusive African golden cats are hardly seen and photographed in the wild. Once in a while, however, they're seen in photos taken by camera-traps as they groom themselves or peer at the lens of the hidden cameras.

Some scientists took photos of the golden cat hunting red colobus monkeys in Uganda. According to conservation group, Panthera, this video released January 27 could possibly be the first footage of the stealthy cat hunting in broad daylight inside the Kibale National Park.

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Scientists now know more about golden cats as opposed to a few years back, according to David Mills from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. More studies, however, are still needed to understand the golden cat's behavior more.

Kibale primatologists have also noted and observed that monkeys produce a special alarm call when golden cats are in the area, which is the latest evidence of cat behavior.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany set-up the camera trap that took the video. At the start of the video \, a group of red colobus monkeys are feeding on a dead tree stump when the attack takes place in the blink of an eye.

A fiery golden cat leaps out from the bushes and strangles a monkey briefly with its sharp claws. Other monkeys narrowly escape the stealthy predator.

Similar to bobcats, golden cats can weigh anywhere from 11 pounds to 35 pounds. Red colobus monkeys can weigh around 15 to 27 pounds, which means that these two can put up a good fight.

Another video depicts a group of colobus monkeys disturbing a sleeping golden cat up in a tree at the Kalinzu Forest Reserve in Uganda.

These cats are listed as a threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They're indigenous to the forests of central and western Africa.

In 2002, they were photographed for the first time ever in the wild.

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