Pallas’ Cat Profile
Cats are usually known to be stylish, cool and sleek, but there’s one species that looks better placed in a child’s drawing.
The Pallas’ cat is a steppe specialist, but living in cold weather comes at the cost of looking cool; instead, it’s likely the dorkiest cat there is.
Pallas’ Cat Facts Overview
| Habitat: | Rocky montane grasslands, shrublands, rocky outcrops |
| Location: | Central Asia, including Caucasus, Tibetan Plateau |
| Lifespan: | 9 years, up to 16 in captivity |
| Size: | Up to 65cm (26 inches) long |
| Weight: | Up to 4.5kg (9lb) |
| Colour: | Light grey with yellowish hues, black tips |
| Diet: | Small mammals: voles, gerbils, lagomorphs, rodents |
| Predators: | Large raptors, red foxes, wolves, dogs |
| Top Speed: | Unknown |
| No. of Species: | 1 |
| Conservation Status: | Least Concern (IUCN) |
The Pallas’ cat looks like it belongs in a Wes Anderson movie, and is named, rather unfairly, after its “ugly ears”.
But this is a highly specialised and well-equipped mesopredator of the steppe, and should not be insulted!
Sadly, this specialisation makes it sensitive to changes in its environment, and for the species, as with all others, those changes seem inevitable.
Interesting Pallas’ Cat Facts
1. They have a third eyelid
Cats have the same pair of eyelids that we do, but they also sport an added layer of protection over the eyeball known as a nictitating membrane. This, as you might have seen in housecats, covers a part of the eye from the side, underneath the main eyelids, sometimes confusing and upsetting onlookers.
But it’s supposed to be there; it’s a sort of window squeegee for the eyeball, and in Pallas’ cats it’s particularly well-developed.
It’s thought this might be extra protection for an animal that needs to hunt in thick snowfall, keeping its vision keen while stalking. And this is just one of a number of adaptations to the harsh environment the cat lives in. 1
2. They’re specialists
Pallas’ cats spend most of their time in cold, rocky ravines, which is what’s known as their realised niche. This means they’re pushed into such treacherous habitats by the presence of predators, and while they could be much happier in warmer plains, those spots are taken up by the larger, more threatening and less cuddle predators.
So the Pallas’ cat has to make do, and it does so with several cool adaptations.
First, its fue is the thickest of any cat, making it look a lot plumper and sausage-like than it actually is.
They’ve also got wider paws for walking on snow, and like many cold-weather animals, shorter legs to reduce heat loss. Their tails would hold more heat if they were shorter, but at a cost to agility, so instead, it’s evolved into a long fluffy scarf that can be wrapped around the cat when it’s sleeping.
But they’ve also got behavioural adaptations. Pallas’ cats occupy marmot burrows and have done for so long, that they don’t know any better. Marmot burrows in many populations are essential housing for the species, providing insulation from the cold and a hiding place to avoid predators.
Despite these adaptations, life is still difficult for a Pallas’ cat. 2
3. They have a low kill rate
Hunting small, fast prey in the snow is difficult with such little legs, and for a stalker like the Pallas’ cat, the odds are stacked against success.
The longer it takes to sneak up on prey, the colder the cat’s feet become, and shaking blood back into numb extremities can give the game away entirely to the family of rodents being stalked.
This is one of the reasons why the poor cat only succeeds in around one-third of its hunting attempts.
This low rate of kills is not uncommon among cats. Lions kill as few as a quarter, and leopards and tigers aren’t much better. The Pallas’ cat is still a highly-specialised hunter, it’s simply that hard to pull off such a feat (incidentally, the black-footed cat never got this memo, and has a 60% kill rate).
4. They do not do well in captivity
Such specialist predators are particularly sensitive, finely-tuned animals, making them susceptible to damage from environmental changes.
Breeding this species in captivity has proven difficult, and even in cases where breeding success was higher, young cats frequently die from toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that‘s common in urban cats and mice.
In one example from Vienna, over half the newborn kittens died this way. 3
5. Clindamycin is one solution
Overall, the mortality rate for this species from all causes during the first year of life was 71.59% in European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) organisations from 2006 to 2016, with one collection suffering 100% mortality among their cats from toxoplasmosis.
The powerful antibiotic, Clindamycin, has been used as a prophylactic to address this issue, resulting in a 67% increase in the poor kittens’ chances, but the animals remain difficult to care for in captivity. 4
6. They don’t do all that well in the wild, either
But this high rate of mortality isn’t simply a product of captivity. The species in the wild has been said to lose 68% of its kittens before they’re old enough to disperse into their own territory.
Kittens are typically born in April and May in Siberia, in litters of between one and six. At two months, they lose their baby fluff and start gaining weight.
By four or five months, they become independent and are ready to reproduce by ten months old. This is a fairly fast turnaround, and likely another adaptation to the high rate of failure.
Sadly, this small cat has a lot of enemies. 5
7. Their habitat is disappearing
The most pressing threat to the species is from habitat degradation and fragmentation. This comes from the increasing presence of agriculture, particularly livestock, and the conversion of natural habitats to pasture and arable land, but is also a product of the development of infrastructure for mining.
Populations of Pallas’ cat now find it difficult to meet, reducing genetic spread, and weakening the resilience of the species.
Herding dogs kill wild cats, as do feral dogs, and humans, when the cats are caught in snares or poisoned inadvertently.
Climate change is expected to exacerbate things by rapidly changing habitats and seasonal variations, to which the cat is not expected to be able to adapt quickly.
Populations are decreasing, but they’re not as badly damaged as was once thought. 6
8. They’ve been moved up a rank
In 2002, this species was classified as Neat Threatened by the IUCN, where it stayed for 17 years, before being bumped up to the much healthier status of Least Concern.
Still, populations have decreased over this time, so the ranking shift has little to do with an improvement in their standing, and more to do with better record-keeping and research by conservationists.
So, this is a mixture of good and bad news, as it means the cat isn’t as far gone as it once seemed, but it’s also a perfect example of the incomplete nature of records that so many species face.
Essentially, all the same problems that threaten the species are still there, and they’re still increasing in severity. While this buys the species more time, it also entitles it to less support, potentially delaying the inevitable.
Still, the population as a whole has been ranked as more stable, so the future is far from certain for this funny little cat.
Pallas’ Cat Fact-File Summary
Scientific Classification
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | Otocolobus |
| Species: | Manul |
Fact Sources & References
- (2022), “Pallas cat guide: where do they live, what do they eat and how big are they?”, discoverwildlife.
- Nicole Caithness, “Felis manul Pallas’ cat”, Animal Diversity Web.
- W Basso (2005), “Toxoplasmosis in Pallas’ cats (Otocolobus manul) raised in captivity”, NIH.
- Simon J Girling (2020), “USE OF CLINDAMYCIN IN PALLAS’ CATS [ OTOCOLOBUS ( FELIS) MANUL] TO REDUCE JUVENILE TOXOPLASMOSIS-ASSOCIATED MORTALITY RATES”, PubMed.
- “Pallas’s Cat”, WildCat Conservation.
- “Pallas’s Cat”, IUCN Red List.