The popular stories of the Corsican shepherds tell that in the forests of Asco, a municipality located in the French part of the island, there is a fantastic animal . The creature looks like a cat but has a tail reminiscent of a fox . It is also larger than a domestic kitten , its ears are wider, its canines are sharper, and its whiskers are shorter. Shepherds say that the fox cat or ghjattu-volpe , as they call it there, attacked the udders of their goats and sheep.
Today the legend is closer to coming true and that is that, after more than 10 years of research, agents of the National Office of Hunting and Wild Fauna (ONCFS) of France have identified 16 specimens of fox cat , similar to the animals described for years by the shepherds.
Twelve of these sixteen specimens have already been examined, one of them being a male of about four or six years of age that has damage to one eye, perhaps the result of a fight. Researchers place identification chips under the felines’ skin like a veterinarian would with a domestic cat, in addition to putting GPS collars on them for a time so they can track their movements. The first of these specimens was accidentally caught in 2008 in a chicken coop. We say by accident because both researchers and animals spent a great deal of time playing cat and mouse.
Pierre Benedetti and Charles Antoine Cecchini, agents of the ONCFS told Agence France-Presse that the fox cats have been located in a mountainous and very rugged area of northern Corsica , away from human presence and where there is water and a vegetation cover that protects them from their main predator, the golden eagle.
This wild cat has nocturnal habits and a very discreet behavior .
“It is the ancestor of the domestic cat. It looks like a cat, “Benedetti told France Info French station.” It has a very particular and very homogeneous phenotype. Their appearance, their color, their weight determine the phenotype ”, he added.
The researchers speak more of a revelation than of a discovery, since the shepherds of the area, long ago, made reference to this feline that measures 90 cm from head to tail . Benedetti and Cecchini started precisely from the legend to investigate the existence of the animal. In 2016 they managed to photograph it with night infrared cameras , capture it without damaging it to study it briefly and release it back into nature.
Using a fragrance that attracts felines and a wooden stick that cats could rub against and leave traces of their fur, researchers were able to obtain a DNA sample from a fox cat in 2012. Analysis of genetic information alienates the fox cat of the European wildcat (felis silvestris silvestris) and brings it closer to the African wild cat (felis silvestris lybica). Benedetti estimates that the arrival of this animal to the area occurred at the time of the second human colonization, 6500 years before our era.
His wild cat physique with fox features makes the name fox cat suitable for him. However, scientists have not found enough certainties to classify it as a species or subspecies . Nor to confirm that it is a wild cat variant, the result of crosses between wild cats.
This last theory is precisely the one that most convinces the director of the regional delegation of the hunting and fauna office: “it would most likely be a cross or hybridization, possibly of a Sardinian wild cat”, he told Le Monde .
Regardless of the scientific verdict, what researchers are clear about is the need to recognize and protect this animal . In fact, they expect protection measures to be taken within two to four years. So be it.
