Geoffroy's cats are small cats, uniformly patterned with small black spots of nearly equal size and
spacing. Coat color tends to darker in the north of its range and gray in the south. Melanism is fairly
common. Adult males weigh an average of 5 kg, and females 4 kg. Geoffroy's cats are good swimmers will
readily enter water. Their diet consists of fish, in addition to amphibians, reptiles, birds and small
mammals such as rats and hares. They are primarily nocturnal and partially arboreal.
A litter of approximately 2 to 3 kits are born after 2 1/2 months gestation. They are born blind
at birth and their eyes will open at approximately 10 days of age. They will be nursed by their mother
for about 4 months and will be on their own at about 18 months. Sexual maturity occurs at about 24 months.
In captivity, they have been known to live 20 years. In the wild, they probably live for about 15
years.
Geoffroy's cat has been described as occupying in a wide variety of habitat
types. It is distributed throughout the pampas grasslands and arid Chaco shrub and woodlands, and up
around the Salinas Grandes to 3,300 m in the Andes. However, it is not found in either the tropical
rainforests or southern broad-leaved forests, and avoids open areas, preferring dense, scrubby vegetation.
Throughout its range, Geoffroy's cat has been described as the most
common of the small cats, with the exception of southern Chile, where it is restricted to a small area
of cold scrublands east of the Andes. However, there are fears that a decade of high-volume skin trade
has severely reduced populations. Its status is not well known.
This species has
been exploited commercially since the international cat skin trade boomed in the late 1960s. International
trade has since declined - no significant trade has been reported since 1988. It is reported that most
pelts in trade today are derived from cats killed as pests and livestock predators, and that commercial
hunting as it existed in the past has essentially ceased.
