Look at the little gyattuvolp - a mixture of a kitten and a fox. This is a new (and very rare) species of the cat family!

Over the past decades, ONCFS has tried to find an animal in Corsica, around which local residents

folded legends - a mixture of cat and fox. The beast has so far been virtually unexplored.

For the first time gyattuvolpe was accidentally caught in 2008year in a trap in the hen house, then the animal and attracted the attention of researchers. In 2012, zoologists set traps to collect the DNA of animals - wooden sticks, which were applied to the attractive scent of cats. As a result, gyattuvolp rubbed on these sticks and left tufts of their fur, ideal for genetic identification.

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Looking at the DNA, we can distinguish it from the European wild cat Felis silvestris silvestris. It is close to the African forest cat F. silvestris lybica, but its exact breed has not yet been determined.

ONCFS Environmental Specialist Pierre Benedetti

Since 2016, scientists have caught a total of 12gyattuvolpe, marking them with electronic chips for tracking. It turned out that gyattuvolp live in Corsica for about 6.5 thousand years, and one male of this species lives approximately on the territory of 3 thousand hectares at an altitude of 300 to 2.5 thousand meters

Gyattuvolpe is different from an ordinary domestic cat,first of all, the size, which on average is 90 cm in length. In addition, animals have wide-set ears, short whiskers and long canines, as well as very dense fur that protects them from fleas and ticks, and a black-tipped tail.

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