Geoffroy Week: Geoffroy’s Cat (Leopardus geoffroyi)

Here is the penultimate representative of Geoffroy Week, of a Friday evening. It’s hailing outside and my house keeps losing power, so let’s keep it brief. Geoffroy’s cat, known as gato montés or gato-do-mato–grande by its bipedal neighbors, lives in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It was once known as the wood-cat, though it lives not only in forests but grasslands as well. It does appear to prefer scrubbier and denser habitats to the more open ones of the pampas, however. It’s a couple feet long, not counting the tail, and weighs 6 to 10 pounds or so: pretty much cat-sized. Geoffroy’s cat is mostly nocturnal with some crepuscular tendencies, and it likes hanging out in trees. It usually hunts small mammals like hares and guinea pigs, but it has also been known to eat fish and frogs, too.