Wild Cat

Here are 36 species of wild cats. In early March 1996 the Felid TAG (Taxonomic Advisory Group) had a conference. At this meeting a revised felid taxonomy was officially agreed to. As you may have noticed in the past, many different books gave different taxonomies - for example, the snow leopard being in 'panthera' or 'uncia', all small cats being 'felis' vs many different small cat genera, etc.The new taxonomy agreed to basically divides the former Felis and Panthera groups into 13 and 4 genera respectively, for a total of 18 genera (13 in the Felidae subfamily, 4 in the Pantherinae subfamily, and 1 in the Acinonychinae subfamily). There are still 36 species (the Iriomote cat is officially a subspecies of Leopard cat, and the Canadian, Eurasian, and Iberian Lynxes are officially different species, not subspecies). Most species are further divided into subspecies, based on physical distinction and/or geographic separation. I have only gone into detail about the leopard subspecies, as these groupings are fairly well agreed upon. Most cat species' subspeciation is a topic of debate.