Awesome Animal Fact - Water-loving Flat-headed Cat

Continuing with the theme of Ridiculously Cute Wild Cats...

A few days ago I posted about the fishing cat. Speaking of cats that eat fish, did you know the FLAT-HEADED CAT, which is smaller than an average domestic house cat, also specializes in catching fish? It even has extra-long, backward-curving teeth to help it hold on to slippery, wriggling fish.

Flat-headed cats get their name from having an unusually flattened forehead and tiny ears. They have very short legs, and a tail that's only half the length of an average domestic cat's tail. One of the smallest wild cats, flat-headed cats weigh only 3.3 to 5.5 pounds (1.5 to 2.5 kg).

An endangered species, the flat-headed cat lives in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Borneo, and Sumatra. These cats probably deserve the name fishing cat even more than the actual fishing cat that already has that name. Flat-headed cats eat fish almost exclusively, though they occasionally catch frogs and crustaceans. Flat-headed cats lunge into the water after their prey. When they catch a fish, they first wash it off in the water to get rid of the sand and dirt, then they carry it a few meters from the water's edge to eat it, which prevents the fish from escaping back into the water.

Photo Credits:
- Flat-headed cat - Jim Sanderson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons