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THE AFRICAN SERVAL

Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Felinae
Species: Leptailurus serval

APPEARANCE:
The serval resembles three cats in varying degrees- a leopard, a cougar and a domesticated cat. This felid has a tiny head, round ears, short tail and another animal it resembles is a lynx. The coloration of the Servals is yellow-buff, having light muzzles and under parts. Their coats have dark spots and the ears hold a big spot at the middle.

HABITAT:
The Serval lives in grassy areas and has a greater range than those all black servals inhabiting the forests, which are principally found in Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro.
The light coloured servals inhabit the jungles and the plains of Morocco, Algeria and South Africa.
The Serval opts to go for food during dawn hours or dusk for that matter, and their number one tool in search of food is their strong hearing.

DIET:
Their diet consists of young antelopes, birds, lizards and rodents too. Sometimes they eat grass just like domestic cats.

BREEDING:
Unlike other animals, they do not have a set breeding period, but most of the young are produced during spring. Size of the litter is 2 to 3, and these young's weight increase (by a hundred percent) by just 11 weeks. The Serval (female) traditionally holds a territory whose measurements are 2 to 9 square kilometers, while the males are two times that size. A typical male shows aggressiveness when called for. Little groups of male adults were noted, they usually rest in daytime, and active at night.

STATUS:
The serval is not considered to be an endangered species over most of its range, but it no longer occurs in areas heavily populated by people. IUCN-International Union of Conservation of Nature, lists it in the category ‘Least Concern' or Appendix II, with only the North African serval listed as ‘Endangered'. The serval is vulnerable to direct hunting and habitat destruction, due to human encroachment or from annual burning of grasslands. People kill servals for their meat (it is considered to be a dinner table delicacy throughout much of their range) and pelts (serval skins are often sold as young leopard or cheetah pelts). Serval body parts are still used in for tribal ceremonies and are eaten to satisfy ancient medicinal beliefs. The pelt trade is mostly for domestic ceremonial, medicinal purposes or the tourist trade rather than for commercial export. The North African serval has been isolated from the sub-Saharan species for perhaps 6,000 to 7,000 years with only a small isolated pocket existing there. Hunting is prohibited in 9 of the 41 range countries where the serval lives. The serval is classified as rare in South Africa, as it has been mercilessly hunted in farming areas. Servals are extinct in the South African Cape Province. Servals flourished in North Africa a century ago, but are becoming increasingly rare with no confirmed sightings in Algeria, Morocco, or Tunisia since the late 1930s, although they flourished there many years ago.

LOCATION:
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, The, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe

HABITATS:
Dry savanna, Forest, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland, Subtropical / Tropical Dry forest, Subtropical / Tropical Dry Grassland and Subtropical / Tropical Dry Shrubland