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Review
. 2023 May 25;13(5):e10130.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.10130. eCollection 2023 May.

A review of caracal and jungle cat diets across their geographical ranges during 1842-2021

Jamshid Parchizadeh  1 , Sarah L Schooler  1   2 , Mohammad Ali Adibi  3 , Mariano G Arias  4 , Sahar Rezaei  5 , Jerrold L Belant  1
Affiliations
Review

A review of caracal and jungle cat diets across their geographical ranges during 1842-2021

Jamshid Parchizadeh et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

Co-occurring carnivore species that are phylogenetically related or of similar size, morphology, and ecological needs often reduce competition by partitioning shared resources through temporal, spatial, and dietary niche segregation via behavioral adaptations. Caracals (Caracal caracal) and jungle cats (Felis chaus) co-occur in portions of their geographical ranges and are expected to display resource segregation in these ranges. We compiled scat, stomach content, and prey remains found data from published and unpublished sources to summarize information on the diets of caracals and jungle cats across their geographical ranges during 1842-2021. We obtained 63 sources from 26 countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in which caracal diet included 151 species while jungle cat diet included 61 species. We found that caracals and jungle cats did not exhibit dietary niche partitioning and had greater dietary similarities in areas of range overlap. We also found that caracals consumed more diverse prey species including prey with greater average body mass compared to jungle cats. Our results suggest that greater prey diversity in areas of range overlap, caracal predation on wide range of prey, and opportunistic feeding behavior that facilitates consumption of more diverse prey species compared to jungle cats, may facilitate co-occurrence between these two felid species.

Keywords: Caracal caracal; Felis chaus; caracal; diet; jungle cat.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Locations of studies used for caracal (Caracal caracal) and jungle cat (Felis chaus) diet comparison during 1842–2021 with International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) species ranges (IUCN, 2016, 2020) with areas of range overlap. For datasets where specific location information was not provided, the location is identified as the center of the country where the study occurred.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean relative frequency weighted by study sample size of prey categories in scat (a) and stomach contents (b) of caracal (Caracal caracal) and jungle cat (Felis chaus) with 95% weighted standard errors from data collected during 1842–2021.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mean relative frequency weighted by study sample size for prey categories in scat with weighted standard errors for caracal (Caracal caracal; a) and jungle cat (Felis chaus; b) in areas of range overlap and without range overlap from data collected during 1842–2021.
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