World Map Shows the Distribution of Big Cats Around the World

Hey all you cool cats and kittens! Have you ever wondered where in the world big cats can be found? Aside from Joe Exotic’s animal park from the Netflix Tiger King series, of course. One Reddit user, u/apyrrypa, made it their mission to bring us this information by creating a color-coded map of the distribution of big cats throughout the world. This map highlights where ten different cat species can be found in the world today. It was originally shared in the /r/MapPorn subreddit and was later updated on apyrrypa’s profile to include even more big cat species. Eight of the ten are considered to be ‘Big Cats’, with the addition of the Mountain Lion and the Bobcat. Check it out here:

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Even though the Mountain Lion has a Big Cat-sounding name it is actually the biggest of the small cat species, considered so because it purrs instead of roars. The Mountain Lion goes by different names depending on the region it can be found in, and with it spanning the entire Western Hemisphere through North and South America it goes by a lot of names. Puma, Cougar, and Panther are some of its more well-known aliases. The Lynx rules the northern hemisphere and is the only cat species to be found on multiple continents that span the ocean, from North America to the northern end of Asia and into the northern part of Europe. The lion may be known as the King of the Jungle, but it looks like that only applies to the land in Africa. Interestingly, the one area of the world that doesn’t seem to have any indigenous big cats, yet is generally stereotyped as having the scariest animals on Earth, is Australia. In fact, none of the countries in the Oceania region can claim to have any species of big cat.

Which member of the cat family were you surprised to find lives in your area of the world?