Otocolobus manul

The size is similar to that of a domestic cat; the body seems short and strong, but in fact it is because of the fluffy body hair, especially the hair on the abdomen, which almost drags on the ground. The forehead of the manul is relatively wide and the snout is very short. Unlike domestic cats, their pupils do not shrink into a slit under strong light, but shrink into a black dot. The ears are uniquely shaped, very short and wide, with blunt tips, and the two ears are far apart. The back of the ears is reddish-gray. The fur on the whole body is extremely dense and soft, with abundant down, especially the hair on the abdomen, which is very long, more than twice the length of the back hair. There are many dark black fine horizontal stripes on the back of the body, the head is gray with some black spots, the inner corners of the eyes are white, there are two fine black stripes on the cheeks, the lower jaw is yellow-white, the ventral surface of the body is milky white, the lower neck and

Origin: China, Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia and Turkmenistan.
Suspected existence: Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Possibly extinct: Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In China, it is mainly distributed in Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Ningxia, Hebei, Heilongjiang and other places.
It lives in shrub steppe, desert steppe, desert and Gobi, and can also live in forests, hills and mountains. It lives in rock crevices or caves in the above habitats, and can also use abandoned caves of large rodents (such as marmots) as nests. The living altitude is between 440-5,593 meters above sea level.

Pallas's Cat has three subspecies (Pallas's Cat, Pallas's Cat and Pallas's Cat). It is said that when ancient nomadic people saw Pallas's Cat on the grassland, they would shout "Dursun", which means stop, and then everyone called it "Pallas's Cat".

The manul is a fierce beast because it has round pupils like lions, tigers and leopards. Among the 40 existing cat species, those with round pupils are a minority, accounting for less than 30% of the total. They are all capable of hunting large prey and are among the top cats in combat effectiveness. As a small cat, the manul has round pupils, which is also unique. Scientists speculate that round pupils are conducive to their rapid focus when they lock on to their targets during the day and continue to pursue them. Interestingly, the natural enemy of the manul is the Tibetan fox, and two of the world's more peculiar animals have come together. Because of its short legs and inability to run fast, the manul will use its fur to blend into the surrounding environment and stay still when facing threats, so as to avoid predators. Emmmm It's really a bit self-deception.

To keep warm, the manul's hair is the densest and longest of all cats, with more than 5,000 7-centimeter-long hairs distributed on each square centimeter of skin. Therefore, this fluffy hair makes it look fat.

It is very difficult to keep the manul in captivity. Manuls live in dry alpine grasslands, so they have no resistance to parasites such as Toxoplasma that only exist in low-altitude humid areas. Therefore, they can be easily infected with Toxoplasma after being kept in captivity. Like other cats, adult manuls rarely have clinical reactions to this; but unlike other cats, pregnant female manuls have no maternal immune response to Toxoplasma, resulting in a large number of newborns infected with Toxoplasma and dying. This also explains why wild-caught female manuls have a high survival rate of cubs, because they have not been infected with Toxoplasma in captivity.

The estimate released by IUCN in 2020 is about 58,000 mature manuls worldwide. The premise of this estimate is that the density of manuls in the suitable distribution area worldwide is 4 per square kilometer, and this density estimate comes from a detailed field survey in central Mongolia. In areas with dense prey, such as the Daur steppe at the border between eastern Mongolia and Russia, the density of manuls can also be very high.

Don't be fooled by the cute appearance of manuls. In fact, they are very aggressive and have a bad temper. They are not close to humans at all. But no matter how fierce they are, it is useless. Because the fur of manuls is of good quality, they have been hunted by humans for thousands of years. Today, manuls have become a national second-class protected animal, which is largely inseparable from their fur. In the 1950s, the annual purchase of manul fur in western China reached 10,000 pieces. In some key distribution counties in eastern Tibet, in the mid-to-late 1970s, each county purchased 500-700 manul fur skins, but in the 1980s, only dozens of pieces were purchased, which shows that the number of its wild population is decreasing year by year.  

Habitat degradation and fragmentation caused by overgrazing are the main threats facing the manul in the 21st century. In recent years, large-scale poisoning and rodent control activities in some of its habitats will weaken the population of prey such as pikas on which it depends for survival, and cause the manul itself to be harmed by secondary pollution. In particular, the sharp decline in the number of Siberian marmots has made it difficult for the manul to find burrows for living and reproduction, thus limiting the population growth of the manul.

Listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2019 ver 3.1 - Least Concern (LC).

Listed in Appendix I, II and III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendix II.

Listed in China's National List of Key Protected Wildlife (February 5, 2021) Level II.

Listed in the Endangered Level (EN) of the China Biodiversity Red List (2021 Edition).

Protect wildlife and eliminate game.

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