Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 552
Big Cats
Hello Everyone
lf you have ever brought up a kitten, you know what a handful they can be!
Domestic cats do not become proper, grown-up cats until they are two years old.
Until that time, you have to think for them like any other baby and make sure they don’t get into trouble.
They can fall off things and get tangled up in things and get stuck in places they shouldn’t go. Some people who have a lot of kittens to look after even put them in big play pens to keep them safe. They have a litter box, a snuggly bed to hide in and lots of toys to play with – along with food and drink.
When they are old enough to go outside, it is best if you accompany a kitten and keep an eye on them until they are full-sized cats.
They can get stuck up trees, fall into places they can’t get out of and get attacked by other animals or even large birds.
All house cats were wild animals originally.
lt is widely thought that they first started living along side humans in Ancient Egypt at the time people started growing large grain crops. The rats and mice who wanted to eat the stored grain were kept until control by small wild cats and the people began to welcome them into their homes as pets.
ln fact, cats were much revered in Ancient Egypt.
They were thought of as members of the family (no change there then).
The cats could even dispatch poisonous snakes – for which the people were very grateful.
Over the years, dogs have been especially bred by humans to be all sorts of different shapes and sizes. But cats are, on the whole, not too different from their ancient, wild ancestors.
Throughout history, domestic cats have often lived most of their lives outside. They were kept to keep down the rodent population in barns and other farm out houses. They might have come inside to be fed. Some of them might have been companions.
lf they were good at catching rats, they could be quite valuable.
You can see in the way that kittens play they are growing up to be hunters, and they are constantly practising their hunting skills by chasing toys and pouncing on them.
Nowadays, cats are often pampered and considered to be one of the family – some people call them fur babies. They live alongside humans more than ever before. Some cats don’t even go outside. They are called indoor cats.
Modern cats like sit on the sofa or even on their own little chairs and watch television. lt seem that their favourite programmes are: ice hockey, snooker and Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Small, domestic cats are found all over the world, but in Africa you will find that some people actually keep cheetahs as house pets.
lf you have a little cat that is a bit of a bed-hogger, just think what it would be like to have a cheetah on your bed instead!
Cheetahs have long been used in Africa as hunting companions and were kept as pets. You will already know that they are the fastest land animals, so they are good at running after prey.
Both cheetahs and leopards have spots on their coats. Tigers have stripes and lions are the colour of dry grass. This is all camouflaging.
Leopards quite like lying in the branches of trees and their markings match in with dappled shade. Lions climb trees too but they are much heavier than leopards so it is not so easy for them. Tigers prowling in long grass and the undergrowth between trees are not so easy to see in streaks of sunlight and shade.
All these big cats live in Africa except the tiger which only lives in Asia and is the biggest of them all.
Leopards live in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Cheetahs live in Africa and the Middle East.
There is a small population of wild Asiatic lions in lndia and they used to live in south-Eastern Europe and the Middle East as well – but not any more.
Tigers tend to live alone; apart from the females bringing up their small cubs.
They are what we call solitary creatures.
Lions mostly live in family groups.
We call this being gregarious.
Lions are the only cats that like to live in groups. lf you have house cats that get on well together, you are lucky. They often get on best when they are brought up together and some people who run animal shelters say that adopting two kittens is better than adopting one alone, because they grow up to be better behaved – this is because they focus on each other; rather than smashing your house up!
All big cats are at the top of the food chain.
They are called apex predators. Apex means top.
lf large cats are thriving in any area, it means that the whole eco-system is healthy.
No other animal hunts big cats; but they can get injured if they take on big prey that lashes back at them when chased.
lf you get confused between what a cheetah looks like and what a leopard looks like because they both have spotty fur, remember that a cheetah has distinctive black lines down its face. They run down from its eyes and around its snout.
Cheetahs aren’t much bigger than a large dog. Leopards, lions and tigers are bigger than cheetahs. The Siberian tiger found in Russia is the biggest cat measuring around 4m/10 feet from nose to tip of their tail!
There are other big cats too like jaguars and cougars which are found in the Americas. Jaguars look a lot like leopards, but are bigger and have wider faces; they live in forests and were thought of as a sacred animal in ancient South American culture – most of them are found in the Amazon rainforests.
Cougars are also sometimes called mountain lions, panthers, catamounts or pumas. This may have confused you – one cat having many names.
The mountain lion is the largest indigenous (native to the area) cat in North America. They are called cougars in the west, pumas in the east and panthers in the south. But these cats are mostly confined to the Rocky Mountains in Canada and the USA.
They are large wild animals and can be dangerous to people and livestock.
Cougars are a sandy-colour, but 11% of leopards and 6% of jaguars are black.
The special word for this is melanistic. They have a lot of natural dark pigment in their coat; but you can still see some spotting in it.
Melanistic leopards are called black panthers. You can get other melanistic animals too like: lions, deer, squirrels and so on; although this is very rare.
Any of the big cats can be kept in private or public zoos, but it is a dangerous to be near them if you don’t know what you are doing; and tigers are the most unpredictable of them all.
Strictly speaking, the term big cat really only belongs to a group of animals (a genus) called Panthera. These are: lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards and jaguars.
Snow leopards live in mountains, and clouded leopards in forests, and are both found in Asia.
Lynx are also found in Asia. They have distinctive tufts on their ears.
Lions are known for their loud roars which can be heard up to about 10km/7 miles away.
Lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars can all roar.
Domestic cats have a wide vocal range and you will notice that different cats have different sounding meows.
There are 38 species of cat in all.
House cats belong to a genus called Felis.
Cheetahs are in a genus of their own – Acinonyx.
Have a look in the picture gallery to see what some of the different cat species look like.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: Do you know why pirates walked the plank?
Bob: Was it because they couldn’t afford a dog?
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Egyptian cat
The first domestic cats
Pets need a lot of care and attention
All cats have teeth for eating meat
Leopard in a tree
Cats sleep a lot because
their protein-rich food takes a long time to digest
Leopard
Snow leopard of the mountains of Central and Southern Asia
Clouded leopard of Borneo and Sumatra
Lynx – look at the tufts on the ears
Cheetah – notice the black lines on the face
Jaguar from the Americas
Jaguars have wider faces than leopards
Cougar
Cougar
Black panthers can be black-coated leopards of Africa or Asia
or black-coated jaguars from Central and South America
A tiger has stripes for camouflage
A pride of lions
Lions live happily together
Females hunt together
Lion cubs are brought up in large families
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
I like to have porridge for my breakfast and the children have picked up the habit too.
Porridge gives you a really solid feeling in your tummy on a winter’s morning to go off to school with.
When children are well-fed, they can concentrate on their school work more easily. It is a well-known fact.
Porridge is easy to make, healthy for you and porridge oats, like root vegetables and pulses are healthy foods that are cheap to buy.
You can cook ordinary porridge oats that are sold in big bags very easily.
Pour a pile in a bowl, put the bowl under the tap and run a slosh of water or milk onto the oats. Don’t cover them with water but rather just slip some water underneath them.
Microwave for a minute and then sprinkle some powders on the oats if you would like to.
You can use any milled seed, small seeds, ginger, cinnamon or any other spice that you like – or a mixture of all of them.
Add any dried fruit you like chopped into little pieces – unless it is already small like sultanas, or fresh fruit like small pieces of apple or berries.
Then get a big spoonful of honey and mix the ingredients together with the spoon.
You will end up with a bowl of thick gooey oats that resemble a flapjack.
You can put cream or a dollop of yoghurt on the top of the oats.
Eat them while they are still warm.
Porridge need never be boring again!
If you have any questions about how to look after a pet properly
or what they can and can’t eat
ask your vet or look online
As the autumn comes upon us, Fireworks Night will be here in a few weeks.
Loud fireworks can scare animals, and even some humans, especially ex-soldiers.
Zoo animals have even died because of the intense noise around them – it must have been like being in a war zone for them. They were terrified; and it is distressing to know they died because of it.
There is a petition that you can add your name to, asking for fireworks to be made quieter.
They will be just as beautiful to look at and have some sound – without the massively loud bangs that go off in our skies for over a week every year.
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Quick Quiz
Can you find the missing letters to complete these words?
They are all parts of a car
- s _ _ _ _ _ _ g w _ _ _ l
- p _ _ _ _ l c _ p
- d _ _ _ _ _ _ _ d
- s _ _ t b _ _ _ s
- g _ _ r s _ _ _ k
- e _ _ _ _ e
- h _ _ _ _ _ s
- b _ _ _ _ _ s
- h _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ s
- a _ _ _ _ _ s
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A LANGUAGE DlCTlONARY
Emily started a new project this week.
Her mum thought it would be a good idea for the summer holidays – a good project for rainy days anyway.
She bought Emily a big scrap book and got her to fill it with pictures she had cut out of old magazines, catalogues and newspapers.
She drew some of the pictures herself – and then coloured them in.
Then underneath she would write the name of each object in French.
It is a good idea to write the word ‘the’ in front of a thing as well because is French things can be male ‘le’ or female ‘la’ (in German they can be male ‘der’, female ‘die’ or neuter ’das’).
So it is a good thing to learn the two words together.
Then Emily had a section for action verbs like: walk, run, sit, sing and swim and another one for useful words like ‘hello’ and thank you.
When you make a book like this it helps you remember words because you put so much work into it.
You can use an online dictionary or a book dictionary to help you translate the words.
So in English this is a cat.
In French le chat
In German die Katze
In Spanish el gato
In Italian il gatto
There are lots of different rules to learn when learning a language and different languages have different rules.
But if you know lots of vocabulary to start with it, will help you a lot when you start to learn a language at school.
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- steering wheel
- petrol cap
- dashboard
- seat belts
- gear stick
- engine
- hubcaps
- bumpers
- headlights
- airbags
