Wildcat - Range

Range

The Wildcat's distribution is very broad, encompassing most of Africa, Europe, and southwest and central Asia into India, China, and Mongolia.

The northern African subspecies, F. s. lybica, occurs across northern Africa, extending around the Arabian Peninsula's periphery to the Caspian Sea, encompassing a wide range of habitats, with the exception of closed tropical forests. It occurs in small numbers in true deserts such as the Sahara, particularly in hilly and mountainous areas, such as the Hoggar. In North Africa, the subspecies occurs discontinuously from Morocco through Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and into Egypt. It occurs throughout the savannahs of West Africa, ranging from Mauritania on the Atlantic seaboard, eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Sudan and Ethiopia. In the south, F. s. lybica is replaced in all East and southern African countries the southern F. s. cafra. The border range between the two subspecies encompasses Tanzania and Mozambique. The Asiatic wildcat, F. s. ornata, ranges from the eastern Caspian into western India, and north to Kazakhstan and into western China and southern Mongolia. The Chinese F. s. bieti is indigenous to western China, and is particularly abundant in the Quinghai and possibly Sichuan provinces. The European subspecies, F. s. silvestris, was once very widely distributed in Europe, being absent only in Fennoscandia and Estonia. However, between the late 1700s and mid 1900s, the species underwent declines and local extirpations, resulting in a fragmentation of its range. It is now extinct in Holland, and possibly extinct in the Czech Republic. It is considered regionally extinct in Austria, though vagrants from Italy are spreading into Austrian territory. In the Pyrenees, the wildcat occurs from sea level to 2,250 m. It is possible that in some areas, including Scotland and Stromberg, Germany, pure wildcats have crossbred extensively with domestic cats. The only island in the Mediterranean to house wildcats is Sicily, with other populations in Sardinia, Corsica and possibly Crete possibly being descended from feral populations introduced there from Neolithic times.