The caracal is a wildcat, small and solitary with reddish-tan fur, a white chin and underbelly, and giant, black-tufted ears that look like mini satellite dishes. Their name comes from the Turkish language: “karrah-kulak,” which means “black ears.”
The caracal is sometimes called a “desert lynx” or “Persian lynx” because they, like the lynx, have distinctive ear tufts; however, the name “lynx” refers to a different genus of cats. In addition, while caracals’ coats are a uniform tawny brown, the cats in the the lynx species are usually spotted.
And while the caracal’s closest relatives are the serval and golden cat, they prefer different habitats than either of these two species.
Caracals are found in grasslands, woodlands and scrubland, steppes, and desert areas throughout Africa, the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. They live somewhere in the middle of the food chain: they hunt birds and a variety of other prey animals but require some cover to escape predators like lions and hyenas.
Caracals eat whatever they can, including birds, monkeys, rodents, goats, and a variety of other creatures. Since they’re opportunistic hunters, they can find prey most anywhere, and it helps that they’re not only fast, but also great jumpers and creatures able to climb up trees to nab an escaping meal. They can also go long periods without water.
Caracals are the fastest and largest of the African small wildcats, and they can jump so high they snag birds out of the air with their sharp claws. They’re known to jump almost 10 feet (three meters) in the air from a crouched position, which, given their size, is pretty impressive.
They have large quadriceps and calf muscles, and what makes them so powerful is that one of their muscle fibers can produce three times more power than that of a human equivalent — it’s a feature they share with lions. Human muscle is primarily composed of slow twitch fibers, which contain lots of mitochondria to provide endurance. In contrast, the caracal has stacks of fast twitch fibers, but lacks mitochondria, making it a sprinter, and not an endurance animal.
It’s because of these fast twitch muscles that these cats have to stalk their prey and pounce quickly. If they didn’t, an antelope, whose muscles also contain fast twitch fibers but who have much more endurance, would be able to outrun the predator.
Their ears are a defining feature, not just because they look unusual, but also because they’re incredibly sensitive. Because they often find themselves in wide-open spaces, if they’re able to hear their prey, they can probably locate it precisely.
A caracal’s ears are always moving, making them look like satellite dishes. Each ear contains three muscle groups — 20 muscles in all — to control it independently of the other. And while the tufted ear tips are useful to camouflage the cat in long grass and may help the cats to communicate with each other, they’re also thought to direct sound into their ears.
Hundreds of years ago, caracals were domesticated in both India and Persia, where they were used for wild game and bird hunting, as well as for fights. The owners would compete by loosing the caracals on flocks of confined pigeons to see how many they could knock out of the air with a single jump. In the wild, caracals can get as many as a dozen birds in a single jump.
In many parts of their native range — mainly central and southern Africa — caracals are so widespread and plentiful that they’ve been classified as a pest species, due to their taste for livestock.
The caracal isn’t legally protected throughout most of its range and is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Those in central and southern Africa remain unprotected and numerous, probably due to the loss of black-backed jackals, which are one of their many predators.
Caracals can adapt easily and recolonize areas from which they’ve previously been removed. They can tolerate the presence of people, as long as the people don’t hunt them for preying on their chickens and goats.
Still, there are areas where the wildcats aren’t nearly as numerous as they once were. In North Africa, they’re nearly extinct, and in Jordan and Pakistan they’re considered an endangered species.
These cats are solitary animals and primarily nocturnal, so they aren’t easy to observe.
While in some places it’s legal to keep a caracal as a pet, it’ it’s generally a bad idea, as they’re nothing like domestic cats. A caracal, like any big cat, is a wild animal, doesn’t take well to domestication, can eat 2-3 pounds of fresh meat a day, and is extremely destructive to household furnishings.
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