Serval

Leptailurus serval

The long-legged Serval is a wild cat that inhabits areas with long grass, usually near water, marshes and reedbeds. They feed mainly on rodents but will prey on anything from insects to birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals up to the size of small antelope. Servals mostly hunt on the ground, leaping spectacularly – up to 3m high and 4m long – to stun their prey from above, being successful in about 50% of their attempted hunts and killing on average 16 animals per day.

Servals weigh about 10kg and stand around 55cm high at the shoulder. Males are slightly larger than females.

Like most felids Servals are active from dusk to dawn, taking refuge in dense vegetation, holes, among boulders and even occasionally up in trees during the day. They’re usually seen alone unless when a pair is mating or when a female moves around with her kittens. The extent to which both males and females are territorial is not clearly understood. Servals are quite fast over short distances and given their preferred habitat it is probably no surprise that they’re good swimmers as well. Females give birth to up to 3 kittens after a 2.5 month gestation, their births coinciding with periods during which rodent numbers are likely to peak. The kittens may stay with their mother for up to a year though they can hunt for themselves from about 6 months of age. They may live to 19 years of age though about 12 years is more usual in the wild.

In South Africa the Serval occurs widely in all provinces except the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape, where they are spotted only occasionally following reintroduction programmes and natural range expansion. While it is considered near-threatened in South Africa, mainly due to habitat loss, the IUCN lists the Serval overall as of least concern, being found over most of sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of the tropical rain forests and the arid Kalahari and Namib deserts. An isolated population in Morocco however is considered to be endangered.