African Wildcat

The African wildcat is a small wildcat with sandy grey fur, sometimes tinged pale yellow or reddish, and almost white on the belly and throat. Dark stripes mark the face and throat, two dark rings circle the forelegs, and pale vertical stripes on the flanks often break into spots. The tail carries two or three rings and a black tip, and the ears have small tufts. Compared with the European wildcat it is smaller, with a slimmer, more tapering tail. It is the ancestor of the domestic cat (Wikipedia, general species account).

This is a cat mostly of Africa and south-west and Central Asia, and in India it reaches only the far north-west, in Rajasthan; the general species account gives little detail from India. Across its range it is active mainly at night, creeping up on prey under cover and locating it by very fine hearing. In the daytime it hides in bushes. It rarely drinks. Where its range overlaps with domestic cats the two often hybridise (Wikipedia, general species account).