Serval
The serval is a slender, medium-sized cat; it stands 54 to 62 cm at the shoulder and weighs 8-18 kg, but females tend to be lighter. The head-body length is typically between 67-100 cm. Males tend to be sturdier than females. Prominent characteristics include the small head, large ears, spotted and striped coat, long legs and a black-tipped tail that is around 30 cm long. The serval has the longest legs of any cat relative to its body size, largely due to the greatly elongated metatarsal bones in the feet.
Their toes are elongated and unusually mobile. The coat is basically golden-yellow to buff and extensively marked with black spots and stripes. The spots show great variation in size. Melanistic servals are also known. Facial features include the brownish or greenish eyes, white whiskers on the snout and near the ears, ears as large as those of a domestic cat (but large relative to the size of the head) and black on the back with a white horizontal band in the middle, whitish chin, and spots and streaks on the cheeks and the forehead. Three to four black stripes run from the back of the head onto the shoulders and then break into rows of spots. The white underbelly has dense and fluffy basal fur, and the soft guard hairs (the layer of fur protecting the basal fur) are 5–10 cm long. Guard hairs are up to 3 cm long on the neck, back and the flanks, and are merely 1 cm long on the face. The closely set ears are black on the back with a horizontal white band; the ears can rotate up to 180 degrees independently of each other. The serval has a good sense of smell, hearing and vision
Habitat
In North Africa, the serval is known only from Morocco and has been reintroduced in Tunisia, but is feared to be extinct in Algeria. It inhabits semi-arid areas and cork oak forests close to the Mediterranean Sea but avoids rainforests and arid areas. It occurs in the Sahel and is widespread in Southern Africa. It inhabits grasslands, moorlands and bamboo thickets at high altitudes up to 3,800 m on Mount Kilimanjaro. It prefers areas close to water bodies such as wetland and savanna, which provide cover such as reeds and tall grasses.
Diet
The serval is a carnivore that preys on rodents, particularly vlei rats, small birds, frogs, insects and reptiles, and also feeds on grass that can facilitate digestion or act as an emetic. Up to 90% of the preyed animals weigh less than 200 g; occasionally it also hunts larger prey such as duikers, hares, flamingoes and young antelopes. The percentage of rodents in the diet has been estimated at 80-97%. Apart from vlei rats, other rodents recorded frequently in the diet include the African grass rat, African pygmy mouse and multimammate mice.
Breeding
Both sexes become sexually mature when they are one to two years old. Oestrus in females lasts one to four days; it typically occurs once or twice a year, though it can occur three or four times a year if the mother loses her litters. Observations of captive servals suggest that when a female enters oestrus, the rate of urine-marking increases in her as well as the males in her vicinity. Zoologist Jonathan Kingdon described the behaviour of a female serval in oestrus in his 1997 book East African Mammals. He noted that she would roam restlessly, spray urine frequently holding her vibrating tail in a vertical manner, rub her head near the place she has marked, salivate continuously, give out sharp and short "miaow"s that can be heard for quite a distance, and rub her mouth and cheeks against the face of an approaching male. The time when mating takes place varies geographically; births peak in winter in Botswana, and toward the end of the dry season in the Ngorongoro Crater. A trend generally observed across the range is that births precede the breeding season of murid rodents.
Gestation lasts for two to three months, following which a litter of one to four kittens is born. Births take place in secluded areas, for example in dense vegetation or burrows abandoned by aardvarks and porcupines. Blind at birth, newborn weigh nearly 250 g and have soft, woolly hair (greyer than in adults) and unclear markings. The eyes open after nine to thirteen days. Weaning begins a month after birth; the mother brings small kills to her kittens and calls out to them as she approaches the den. A mother with young kittens rests for a notably lesser time and has to spend almost twice the time and energy for hunting than do other servals. If disturbed, the mother shifts her kittens one by one to a more secure place. Kittens eventually start accompanying their mother to hunts. At around six months, they acquire their permanent canines and begin to hunt by themselves; they leave their mother at about 12 months of age. They may reach sexual maturity from 12 to 25 months of age. Life expectancy is about 10 years in the wild and up to 20 years in captivity.
Population
According to the IUCN Red List they are classed as Least Concern(LC) but outside northern Africa, where it is considered to meet the Red List Criteria for Endangered and the Sahel, where it is rare, the Serval is commonly recorded from most major national parks and reserves. Their status outside reserves is uncertain, but they are inconspicuous and may be common in suitable habitat as they are tolerant of farming practices provided there is cover and food available.
Threats
The major threat to Serval is wetland habitat loss and degradation. Wetlands harbour comparatively high rodent densities compared with other habitat types and form the core areas of Serval home ranges. Of secondary importance is the degradation of grasslands through annual burning followed by over-grazing by domestic livestock, leading to reduced abundance of small mammals.
International legal commercial trade is generally declining, although skins are still traded in large quantities in some countries, such as Senegal, Gambia and Benin, and exported to North Africa. Serval pelts seen in trade in Morocco could come from elsewhere or could indicate the species continued existence in that country. In Zambia pelts are rarely used for traditional clothing, often it is used as a substitute for Leopard skins. Trade-in West Africa appears to be primarily for ceremonial or medicinal purposes. For example, they are highly valued for traditional medicine in Nigeria, where, among markets surveyed in five south-west Nigerian towns in 1994, Servals were the second most commonly offered mammalian species. Although Serval very rarely preys upon livestock (and indeed may even be beneficial to crop farmers due to their predilection for rodents), in rural areas throughout Africa, they are sometimes persecuted for taking poultry and indiscriminate predator control methods practised by pastoralists frequently kill them. Sometimes other predators, such as leopards, hyaenas or lions, kill young and even adult Serval
Conservation
The Serval is listed on CITES Appendix II. Hunting is prohibited in Algeria, Botswana, Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa (Cape province only), and Tunisia, and hunting regulations apply in Angola, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia. Servals occur in a number of protected areas across their range, including: El Kala National Park (N.P.) (Algeria), Feidja N.P. (Tunisia), Ifrane N.P. (Morocco), Comoé N.P. (Côte d’Ivoire), WAPO complex (Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, Togo), Zakouma N.P. (Chad), Simien and Bale Mountains National Parks (Ethiopia), Odzala N.P. (Congo Republic), Virunga N.P. (DR Congo), Queen Elizabeth N.P. and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda), Aberdare Mountains N.P. (Kenya), Serengeti and Selous National Parks (Tanzania), Moremi G.R. and Chobe N.P. (Botswana), and Kruger N.P. and Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (South Africa). Odzala N.P. in the Congo Republic could be a key site for protecting serval as it is the only currently known protected population in the Gabon-Congolian savanna region, which are isolated from the Miombo woodlands south of the Congo River.