Wildcat taxonomy is hotly contested, especially with the 2017 revision of the taxonomy of Felidae, which posits that the wildcat of Africa, the Middle East and South and Central Asia is a different species from that of Europe and the Caucasus.
The island of Corsica, once home to many insular endemic mammals during the Pleistocene, has always had a legendary wildcat, one that farmers claimed was a predator of goats and other livestock. However, it was debated about whether this cat was a European wildcat or just a feral cat.
However, in recent days, various outlets have reported that a team of scientists is now examining this cat more closely. Its DNA is different from the mainland European wildcat.
One hypothesis is that these “fox cats” arrived with the second human colonization of Corsica, which would put it closer to the ancestor of domestic cats than to the European one.
The current thinking is that this Corsican fox cat is a new species, but more analysis is going to be performed before anyone can make that conclusion.
If this animal arrived with people and is derived from the Middle Eastern population of Felis lybica, then it is a feral cat. However, it is a different sort of feral cat than one finds in parking lots and old warehouses.
This discovery will take a lot more work to figure out fully what it is. It may be a new species of cat, or it may give us better clues on how cats were domesticated.
It is an amazing find, and I have so many questions. And they will likely be answered in the not to distant future.
Interesting find. If it’s a feral cat brought with very early people, then it’s as feral as the Dingo, which isn’t generally thought of as feral (even though it actually is). The first article I read actually said it was a fox x cat HYBRID, but I think it must have been translated from French.
Is the reddish fur more common for the wild felis Lybica than european wild cats? Or is this colour more associated with the domestic housecat?
European wildcats tend to be grayer than Lybica.