Habitat: Found in scrubland, evergreen and deciduous forests. Up to 900m.
Geographical spread: Central and South America; from Mexico south to Uruguay and Argentina.
Current population: Widespread but has always seemed rarer than the ocelot, status unknown.
Status: On Appendix 1 of the CITES (two subspecies) and considered vulnerable by the IUCN. and US-ESA endangered.
Size: Head and body length 501-720mm, tail length 351-490mm.
Weight: 3-9kg.
Normal diet: Feeds on arboreal and terrestrial small mammals such as rats, squirrels, opossums and monkeys, birds and reptiles.
Normal lifestyle: Solitary. Arboreal and terrestrial and probably nocturnal. Female raises 1-2 kittens on her own.
Reasons for decline: The most serious threat in the past has been the fur trade, which has demanded thousands and thousands of spotted cat skins. All of the wild populations of these small cats (Lynx, Ocelot, Bobcat, Puma and Geoffroy's cat) have suffered a similarfate. In 1977 30,000 Margay skins were caught in the Amazon and exported mainly to the US. The Margay is still subject to hunting. Huge numbers of felid skins are needed because of the intricate matching procedure required for each garm ent. When a species becomes too scarce to provide enough skins, another species of cat is exploited. Thus species by species the small cats are being hunted to the point where populations are so small that they may never recover. The Margay is also threa tened by deforestation in Central America.
Current threats: As above hunting and deforestation.
Conservation projects: CITES was a key instrument in halting the trade in spotted cat skins. This occurred in 1985.
File last modified Thursday, October 3, 1996