Geoffroy's cat ジョフロイネコ

Geoffroy's cat is a wild cat about the size of a house cat, living in the grasslands and scrub of southern South America. Its body is covered in small black spots, and it is known for standing up on its hind legs to look around. The Safari breed originated from crosses between this species and house cats. It is listed as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List, but because of its history in the fur trade it is listed in CITES Appendix I.

It has a head-and-body length of 43–88 cm and weighs about 3–6 kg, about the size of a house cat. Small black spots are evenly scattered over a grey to yellowish-brown coat, merging into bands on the legs. Two black streaks run across the cheeks. All-black (melanistic) individuals are also found in forests and wetlands.

It is mainly active at night, dawn and dusk. It feeds mainly on small rodents and also eats birds, hares, fish and frogs. It has been seen standing on its hind legs, using its tail for support, to look around. Gestation lasts about 62–76 days, and litters are of 1–3 kittens.

It is found in six countries—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay—from southeastern Bolivia south to the Strait of Magellan. It is now treated as a single species with no subspecies.

It lives in a variety of habitats, including the pampas grasslands, dry forest and scrub of the Chaco, semi-desert and wetlands, and has been recorded up to 3,800 m. It does not live in tropical or temperate rainforests.

The Safari breed originated from crosses between Geoffroy's cats and house cats. The two differ in chromosome number: house cats have 38 and Geoffroy's cats 36.

In the IUCN Red List assessment published in 2015, it is listed as Least Concern (LC) (it was Near Threatened in the 2002 and 2008 assessments). Large numbers were exported for fur in the 1960s–80s, but the trade had almost stopped by around 1988, and it was listed in CITES Appendix I in 1992. Today the main threats are killing in retaliation for poultry losses, habitat loss and fragmentation, road traffic, and diseases from dogs and other animals.

It was described in 1844 by the French naturalists d'Orbigny and Gervais. It is named after the French naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. It was once divided into five subspecies, but genetic studies found no subspecies differences, and the 2017 classification does not recognize any.