The Fennec Bobcat

Fennec Bobcat (Zerda rufus)

Big Ears:

The big ears that the Fennec Bobcat has are very beneficial in a numerous ways. The ears are great for listening for bugs to eat that may be moving around underground, but they are also loaded with blood vessels, allowing the animals to lower the excess body heat. Earlier when there was a food shortage in the desert it was hard to hear the prey for them to eat. Over time the bobcat developed big ears so they could almost all the time be able to hunt down their food.

Sharp Claws/Teeth:

The sharp teeth and claws serve one main purpose and they go hand in hand together, that is to hunt. The sharpness of both of this gives the cat an upper hand on purely obliterating any animal in sight. Sharp teeth and claws

The main way way to tell whether an organism belongs in animalia is if they are multicellular and eukaryotic. They also have multiple cells with mitochondria and they depend on other organisms for food which is a great way to tell what kingdom it belongs in. Finally the best way to determine that it is in animalia is that it reproduces using sexual reproduction which again is a great way to show that its best fit is animalia.

Phylum: Chordata

The Fennec bobcat belongs in Chordate because of a few traits that it has. The main body structure that it has is the notochord, this is the rod that supports the body. The second most important traits that it has is the post-anal tail. The tail is the skeletal extension of the posterior end of the body. The Fennec bobcat has a nice long tail with a black tip at the end.

Class: Mammalia The key characteristics of being a mammal are having mammary glands, hair, warm blooded and have a well developed brain. The Fennec bobcat has all of these traits, the most important trait that it has the hair. The hair is beneficial in both its pigmentation and its thickness.

Order:

Again the Fennec bobcat has all of these traits. The main trait they that procure is that they are social. Nearly all Fennec bobcats travel in packs because they like to have eachothers back when in sticky situations.

Genus: Vulpes Vulpes is the latin translation for Fox. They have a lot of similarities with dogs, coyotes, and wolves. An important body structure is canid limbs, they are designed specifically for running quickly on land to catch prey. All foxes live throughout the whole world but the Fennec Fox lives in northern Africa (Sahara)

Species: Zerda The species name zerda comes from the Greek word xeros which means dry, referring to the fox's habitat. It’s dry habitat is referred to The Sahara in northern Africa. Unlike any other foxes the Fennec has 32 chromosome pairs instead of around 37 for all other foxes. The Fennec foxes notable adaptations are the thick fur to keep warm, cream colored fur to blend in and ears that are unproportionate to its body size to hear things especially well and the blood vessels to get rid of excess body heat.

Origin