Natural History

Posted in Carnivorans, wildlife | Tagged black serval, melanistic serval, serval | 9 Comments

9 Responses

1. on December 29, 2011 at 6:39 pm Christopher@BorderWars

   Eater of souls.

   
   
   • on December 30, 2011 at 3:23 pm Jess

     The original Basement Cat.

     
     
2. on December 29, 2011 at 6:48 pm tracey

   eww now that is just creepy, what a stare he has got. my neighbours got a cat who looks at you like that , its a look of utter contempt and loathing.
   tracey

   
   
   • on December 29, 2011 at 10:14 pm massugu

     Being a bit anthropomorphic aren’t we Tracey?

     
     
3. on December 30, 2011 at 4:32 am tracey

   no not reallly it is just a comment on the look, isint that something we all do. if you have cats you know that they do look at you like that. do you not think animals are capable of feelings or emotions then.

   
   
4. on December 30, 2011 at 11:38 am massugu

   Please, no offense intended.

   On the contrary, I think animals are generally subject to the same range of emotions as we, I simply distrust interpreting the body language of a critter as different from us as a cat by human referents. I once had a neighbor who owned a very large, blue-eyed Husky that had that same 100-yard stare. He made people extremely uneasy but was actually a real pussy-cat. On the other hand, a Gorilla I once observed at a zoo had a similar stare that did give me the willies.

   However, I will say that, while I would grant a cat a feeling of loathing and disgust (as when my cat steps in water), I find it hard to believe that he feels contempt. That is an “emotion” that really does seem to be human-specific. And since I come from a family in which many members feel that cats are somehow inherently evil, I am highly sensitized in this regard.

   The fact that predators have forward-facing eyes as we do, tends to make us anthropomorphize them to a greater extent than we might do with herbivores–so we often misinterpret their intent. I personally interpreted the stare of the Serval pictured above as being one of extreme concentration–as a predator sizing up a potential threat–not one of contempt or loathing. If (s)he had been say, a tiger, I would think (s)he was trying to determine whether the photographer was a threat or a potential snack.

   
   
5. on December 30, 2011 at 12:02 pm tracey

   i certainly do not see cats as evil, i have 2 of my own and have had several others over the years. all i said was that my neighbours cat looks at you with a look of loathing. he may not loathe me or indeed have contempt of me he just looks like he does, it is how my brain chooses to interprete the stare , i am not saying that the cat is thinking that just that it looks like that.

   
   
   • on December 30, 2011 at 2:13 pm massugu

     OK, peace!

     
     
6. on December 30, 2011 at 12:41 pm Ogre Magi

   That would make a good witch’s cat

   
   

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