Cat Watch

Cats are king, and they are everywhere. There are 38 species of felids, ranging from the seven-pound tabby in your lap to 500-pound Siberian tigers—with cheetahs, leopards, ocelots, and other striped and spotted cats in between.

How Did the Leopard Get His Spots? Scientists Explain -By: Frances Perraudin

A new study from researchers at Bristol University in the U.K. has shown that author Rudyard Kipling was more right than you'd think.

In Rudyard Kipling's famous Just So Stories of 1902, the ‘How The Leopard Got His Spots' story describes how an Ethiopian hunter paints spots on a leopard to help it blend into the “speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows” of the forest. “Apart from the painting part, Kipling was quite right,” said Allen to the Guardian. “The leopard got its spots from a life in forested habitats, where it made use of the trees and nocturnal hunting.