Family

**Family Members**

 * [[image:cheetah-b1.jpg width="160" height="315"]] ||= The Cat Family is made up of many different kinds of animals; be it the domestic cat or those in the wild such as cheetahs, [|tigers] and panthers, they are all related. However over time they moved to different areas and developed different features.

The earliest known cat is the [|Prolailurus] which lived 30 million years ago. Now extinct, it was the same size as a [|bobcat], had a long six inch skull and more teeth than its modern cousins.

Big cats are not the only roaming the jungles. These cats have many close relatives like the hyena and [|civet]. These animals might not look like cats, but they are in fact close relatives of cats.

There are about 40 existing species of cats. Some animals called cats are not. The polecat is a member of the weasel family. The tiger cat of Australia is a marsupial, and its proper name is dasyure. media type="youtube" key="b8gNYq7UTRU" height="195" width="240" || ||   ||


 * [[image:polecat.jpg width="404" height="328" caption="Polecat"]] || [[image:weasel.jpg width="408" height="327" caption="Weasel"]] || [[image:tiger_cat.jpg width="460" height="340" caption="Tiger Cat"]] ||