Cryptomundo » A Surprise of Servicals

A Surprise of Servicals

Posted by: Karl Shuker on June 4th, 2013

Many different hybrids between the smaller species of wild cat have been recorded over the years, but I would like to mention one particular interspecific (indeed, intergeneric) cross featuring smaller cats here – because, as far as I am aware, when I originally included details of it in the article of mine (Wild About Animals, February 1996) that inspired this present, expanded blog post, it was the first time that a successful mating between these two species had ever been documented.

“In 1993, Dr Warren D. Thomas informed me that a few years earlier, while he was director there, a litter of four feline hybrids was born at Los Angeles Zoo, sired by a serval Leptailurus serval and born to a caracal Caracal caracal. This very unusual mating took place quite by accident, while the two cats were participating in an educational programme.”

Further details can be obtained here, on my ShukerNature blog.

Karl Shuker About Karl Shuker
My name is Dr Karl P.N. Shuker. I am a zoologist (BSc & PhD), media consultant, and the author of 25 books and hundreds of articles, specialising in cryptozoology and animal mythology. I have a BSc (Honours) degree in pure zoology from the University of Leeds (U.K.), and a PhD in zoology and comparative physiology from the University of Birmingham (U.K.). I have acted jointly as consultant and major contributor to three multi-author volumes on cryptozoology and other mysterious phenomena. I am the Life Sciences Consultant to The Guinness Book of Records/Guinness World Records (Guinness: London, 1997-present day), and was consultant to Monsters (Lorenz Books: London, 2001), as well as a contributor to Mysteries of the Deep (Llewellyn: St Paul, 1998), Guinness Amazing Future (Guinness: London, 1999), The Earth (Channel 4 Books: London, 2000), and Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained (Chambers: London, 2007). I appear regularly on television & radio, was a consultant for the Discovery TV series Into the Unknown, and a question setter for the BBC's quiz show Mastermind. I am a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, a Member of the Society of Authors, and the Cryptozoology Consultant for the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ). I have written articles for numerous publications, including Fortean Times, The X Factor, Paranormal Magazine, FATE, Strange Magazine, Prediction, Beyond, Uri Geller's Encounters, Phenomena, Alien Encounters, Wild About Animals, All About Cats, All About Dogs, Cat World, etc. In 2005, I was honoured by the naming of a new species of loriciferan invertebrate after me - Pliciloricus shukeri.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 4th, 2013 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Cryptozoology, Mystery Cats, ShukerNature. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.