Scottish wildcat

The Scottish wildcat (also known as the Highland tiger) is a European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) population in Scotland. It was once widely distributed across Great Britain, but the population has declined drastically since the turn of the 20th century due to habitat loss and persecution. It is now limited to northern and eastern Scotland. Camera-trapping surveys carried out in the Scottish Highlands between 2010 and 2013 revealed that wildcats live foremost in mixed woodland, whereas feral and domestic cats (Felis catus) were photographed mostly in grasslands. It is listed as Critically Endangered in the United Kingdom and is threatened by hybridization with domestic cats. Since all individuals sampled in recent years showed high levels of hybridisation with domestic and feral cats, this population is thought to be functionally extinct in the wild. Felis grampia was the scientific name proposed in 1907 by Gerrit Smith Miller Jr. who first described the skin and the skull of a wildcat specimen from Scotland. He argued that this male specimen from Invermoriston was the same size as the European wildcat (Felis silvestris), but differed by a darker fur with more pronounced black markings and black soles of the paws. In 1912, Miller considered it a subspecies, using Felis silvestris grampia after reviewing 22 skins from Scotland in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London. When Reginald Innes Pocock reviewed the taxonomy of the genus Felis in the late 1940s, he had more than 40 Scottish wildcat specimens in the collection of the Museum at his disposal. He recognized Felis silvestris grampia as a valid taxon. Results of morphological and genetic analyses indicate that the Scottish wildcat descended from the European wildcat. The Great Britain population became isolated from the continental population about 7,000 to 9,000 years ago due to a rise of sea level after the last glacial maximum. Since 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group recognizes Felis silvestris silvestris as the valid scientific name for all European wildcat populations and F.