Black-footed cats are Africa’s smallest cat and the deadliest of the entire cat family – with a 60 percent hunting success rate. New technology finally allows us to follow this tiny predator on her nocturnal pursuits.
Features
TRANSCRIPT
This little female is known to researchers as Gyra.
She's tiny, weighing a mere two pounds - 200 times less than a lion.
She'd be almost impossible to find, but she's being tracked with a radio collar.
And using surveillance cameras that rival a cat's night-vision, we can, at last, reveal her nocturnal pursuits.
She can walk 20 miles a night in search of food, the farthest recorded for any small cat.
Guided by superb night vision and responding to the smallest of sounds, she finds almost anything that moves is a potential meal.
She'll even eat locusts, but she prefers gerbils.
Or if that doesn't work - birds!
With a wiggle to tuck her legs in, she gets as low to the ground as possible.
Primed like a spring, she can deliver maximum power to jump.
She hits her target 60 percent of the time.
It's what makes black-footed cats the most lethal hunters in the entire cat family.
