Animal · Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa
Serval
Leptailurus serval — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The serval is a slim African wild cat with golden spotted fur, and for its size it has the longest legs and the largest ears of any cat. It hunts mostly by listening, and jumps high into the air to catch its prey.
Picture credit: Raf24~commonswiki (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Rama (CC BY-SA 2.0 fr) · datadan (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the serval live?
Home: Grasslands, reed beds and wet meadows south of the Sahara.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, DR Congo, Ethiopia.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: 60 to 100 cm long, about 60 cm at the shoulder. It weighs about 11 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
A serval walks quietly through tall grass with its huge ears turning like radar dishes, listening for a mouse it cannot see. When it hears one, it rears up and jumps, landing with both front paws on the hidden animal; it can leap more than two metres high and even snatch a bird out of the air. About half of its hunts succeed, far more than most cats manage, and a serval may catch a dozen rodents in one night. It also hooks frogs and fish out of shallow water with a quick paw, and it can reach into a burrow with its long front leg. Servals live alone in grassy and marshy country south of the Sahara. They are still fairly common, but in some regions they are hunted for their spotted fur.
Find it on the globe
Serval is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How high can a serval jump?
A serval can leap more than two metres straight up, which is higher than a door. It uses the jump to drop onto hidden prey in the grass or to knock a bird out of the air.
What does a serval eat?
Almost everything it catches is small: rats and mice above all, plus birds, frogs, lizards and large insects. A serval needs many small meals and may hunt more than a dozen animals in a night.
Can a serval be kept as a pet?
No. A serval is a wild animal that needs a large territory, hunts at night and marks everything with scent. In many countries keeping one is forbidden, and rescued servals often end up in special centres.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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