African Golden Cat - Subspecies

Subspecies

There are two subspecies of African golden cat:

• Profelis aurata aurata - from Congo to Uganda
• Profelis aurata celidogaster - throughout Western Africa

Each of the subspecies has two distinct spotting patterns. P. a. aurata can either have spots just on its lower body, or no spots at all except a few indistinct spots on the belly. P. a. celidogaster can either be spotted all over, or have a few spots on the back and neck with a few large spots on the sides of the body.

Some sources list P. a. cottoni instead of P. a. celidogaster. In this arrangement, all populations are included in the nominate, with the supposed second subspecies restricted to the rainforests of easternmost Congo and Uganda. But this is based on a 1939 study and lumps allopatric populations in the nominate, while treating parapatric ones as distinct, which is not very reasonable biogegoraphically. Thus, subsequent authors usually considered the supposed P. a. cottoni a semi-melanistic color morph, and recognized an allopatric division between the subspecies as listed above. This confusion is mainly due to the red/grey polymorphism mentioned above, as well as uncertainties about the type localities. In any case, individuals resembling P. a. "cottoni" have been found all over the species' range in particularly humid habitat, and individuals in captivity have even been observed to change coat color between the "typical" (red) morph and dusky grey as they shed their fur.

The African golden cat is superficially similar to the Asian golden cat, However, genetic analysis has determined that they are not closely related. Its closest relatives are the caracal (Caracal caracal) and serval (Leptailurus serval), while the Asian golden cat (Pardofelis temminckii) belongs to the genus Pardofelis.