Is there a ghost of a chance that this mysterious fuzzball is real? Or just another figment of someone’s fevered imagination?  Does the specter of a new cat species thrill you? Then join us as CryptoVille investigates!

Because there aren’t enough adorable photos of cats on the internet, I had to find this one! Is the Ghost Cat of South America real? Oh yes, it is!

Let me introduce you to Leopardus geoffroyi, a wild cat that lives in central and south America.  Also known as Salty Cats and Ghost Cats. Scientists tell us that they don’t know much about these little fuzzballs at this point, and they can’t get the funding to put any serious studies together. But there are some things we do know, so let’s look at that list:

1. Range: These cats live along a big swath of South America, from the Salt Flats of Bolivia down to the Patagonian Grasslands.
2. Habitats: Range from marshes, savannas, pampas, farmland, scrubland, to mountains and forests.
3. Color: In warmer climates, they are described as ochre colored. In the cooler parts like the Andes mountains, they are silver/gray colored. All these cats have a white or creamy underbelly.
4. Variation: There is a melanistic version that lives in the swamplands and is so black, they are impossible to see at night. They don’t appear to have the light-colored underbellies.
5. Size: About the size of a domestic house cat – 8.8 lbs. (4 kg), measuring about 24 inches long with a tail measuring about 12 inches.
6. Food: What you’d expect from a wild cat – mice, hares, birds, snakes, small lizards, insects, and other small mammals. They’ve also been seen eating frogs and fish.
7. Reproduction: Females give birth to 1 to 2 kittens, usually, and the kittens grow more slowly than domestic cat kittens.

These cats are known as Geoffroy’s cats primarily, but because many live along the salt flats of Bolivia, they have become known as Salt cats. Despite all that, they are very hard to find (although they do seem to like investigating trail cameras LOL!!), so they’ve also become known as Ghost cats.

Despite all their hiding abilities, they are on the endangered list mainly because they are prone to becoming road kill thanks to all the new roads being built throughout the continent.

They used to be hunted for their desirable pelts, but thanks to some legislation, that has fallen off dramatically since 1988.

The six-minute video in the Reference section below will show you the Ghost cats in action. Very cute and a little mischievous – just what you’d expect!

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3eQi_8Oqb0&ab_channel=Animalogic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffroy%27s_cat