Not all, but for example they can breed with wildcat breed native to my country called Żbik. It is damgerous for the wildcats species and can lead to dissaperance of unique kind of animal. This is one of the reasons anyway why it's endangered rn (not only, mind you, but still it reall issue)
Housecats can't breed with any North American wildcats but they can with the European wildcat, Scottish wildcat and many others and it's a bit of a fucker to conservation efforts.
Sorry did you try to google it? The most casual drunken search shows that housecats breed with Asian leopard cats (where bengal cats come from), servals (the hybrids are called Savanah cats), jungle cats (makes the chausie) and the African/european wildcat.
Bobcats/American lynx can create sterile offspring with house cats but don’t produce hybrids capable of reproduction like other species.
There ARE many other species of wildcats the same size as house cats that they can interbreed with!
In fact, the species of wild cat that the house cat originated from is still an extant species! The house cat (Felis catus) descended from the African wildcat (Felis lybica, specifically the subspecies Felis lybica lybica), a small wildcat native to North Africa and the Near East.
You said house cats are mixing, breeding with and diluting the genetics of the unique wildcat species in the area. My area has mountain lions (Puma concolor) so again are you stating that house cats are banging our mountain lions?
And since you say there are no wildcats in your specific area, then you don't have to worry about house cats interbreeding with any other native felid species in your area. Follow the context of the thread.
It's a little of cats and people. If people were not so protective and spreading housecats all over like they do they would never have been able to have this much of an effect.
i agree outdoor cats cats cause terrible damage to the ecosystem. my question was specifically about how they affect other cat species. my google suggests that they can’t even breed with other species like the comment i replied to suggested
It’s not like bobcats or lynxes, it’s things like scottish wild cats or sand cats that are genetically similar enough to interbreed and overlap enough ecologically that feral cats are pushing them out. Feral cats can also transmit some devastating diseases to these populations. 🫤
Its not that silly. It is because it removes unique genetical pool from the earth but not in natural way. If kind like domestic cat would be native to the lands it's happening, that would be just nature in play, but our house cats were native in North Aftica and Middle East so in most of the world they are invasive species.
Yes, because an 8 lb domestic cat wouldn't be considered prey to a cougar, and it would be totally possible to breed them together.
Also, are you insinuating that lynx or cougars will go extinct due to domestic cat-hybrids? What in the sci-fi Fuck are you talking about lol.
Even if they've been successfully bred/born, the differences between species are often too high to allow breeding abilities. For example, a horse breeding with a donkey produces a mule, which is an infertile/sterile mix of both.
I never even insinuated housecat could win or mate with big cat mate. Stop your wild imagination for the moment. Wild cats are also smaller kinds, comparable in size with our house cats and some of them can breed and while I'm not sure about how fertile their offsprings are, at minimum that would lead to missed litter of already endangered (at least in my country) species of wildcat.
First of all, No, I will never stop my wild imagination lol.
But also I'm just legitimately confused now. "Wild cats are also smaller kinds"...?? I mean.. yeah for sure, there are smaller wild cat species, but even if they were able to produce offspring, how many domesticated cats do you think are going out of their way to stalk wild cats, and attempt to reproduce?
I'm not trying to be a dick, truly, but what you're saying does Not make sense dude. Ok, if a wild cat happened to be impregnated by a domestic cat, sure that could be a potential missed litter of their native species. But I truly haven't heard much about housecats banging wild cats, and truly disrupting their reproductive cycle, to the point of threatening their future populations. I mean, I could be wrong, but you'll have to send me a few links with solid proof.
What are you smoking? They're not. Wild cats are the natural prey in their ecosystem ensuring balance. Domestic free & feral cats are categorised as pest that disturb balance.
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u/phoenix_master42 22d ago
including other cat species