First report of rare cat discovered on Mt. Everest
New scientific finding marks the first documented discovery of Pallas’s Cat on the world’s highest mountain
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: FINDINGS FROM A NEW PAPER PUBLISHED IN CAT NEWS HAVE IDENTIFIED THE FIRST EVER REPORT OF PALLAS’S CAT ON MOUNT EVEREST, IN THE SAGARMATHA NATIONAL PARK IN NEPAL view more
CREDIT: JULIE LARSEN/MAHER/WCS
Findings from a new paper published in Cat News have identified the first ever report of Pallas’s cat on Mount Everest, in the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal. This groundbreaking finding is a result of the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, the most comprehensive single scientific expedition to the mountain in history.
From April 7 to May 2, 2019, Dr. Tracie Seimon of Wildlife Conservation Society’s Zoological Health Program, based at the Bronx Zoo, co-led the Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition biology field team of scientists who collected environmental samples from two locations 6 km (3.7 miles) apart at 5,110 and 5,190 m (16,765 and 17,027 ft) elevation above sea level along Sagarmatha National Park on Mount Everest’s Southern Flank.
“It is phenomenal to discover proof of this rare and remarkable species at the top of the world,” said Dr. Seimon. “The nearly four-week journey was extremely rewarding not just for our team but for the larger scientific community. The discovery of Pallas’s cat on Everest illuminates the rich biodiversity of this remote high-alpine ecosystem and extends the known range of this species to eastern Nepal.”
The DNA analysis of scat samples collected from both sites confirmed two Pallas’s cats inhabit Mount Everest and overlap in territory with red fox. The researchers found evidence of pika and mountain weasel DNA in the samples, an important food source for Pallas’s cat. These findings also add a new species to the list of known mammals in Sagarmatha National Park, a heavily visited and protected World Heritage site.
“This is a unique discovery not only in terms of science but also conservation as this population of Pallas’s cat is legally protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora),” said National Geographic Explorer and co-author of the paper, Dr. Anton Seimon. “We hope that the confirmation of this new charismatic species will raise awareness of and education about the diversity of species at this iconic World Heritage Site.”
The number of tourists visiting Sagarmatha National Park and Mount Everest has been dramatically increasing, from just a few thousand in the 1970s to over fifty thousand in 2019. It is notable that Pallas’s cat went undetected in this park until 2019, and the new study demonstrates how conservation genetics and environmental sampling can be utilized as a powerful approach to discover and study cryptic and elusive species like Pallas’s cat.
Future research combining camera trap surveys and collection of additional scat samples would help to better define the Pallas’s cat population, range, density, and their diet in Sagarmatha National Park.
“The groundbreaking 2019 Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition continues to be extremely valuable to better understand the most iconic environment on our planet,” said Nicole Alexiev, Vice President of Science and Innovation Programs at National Geographic Society. “These results are a perfect illustration of why this work is important and a cornerstone of our partnership with Rolex to study and explore Earth’s critical life support systems.”
From April to May 2019, an international, multidisciplinary team of scientists conducted the most comprehensive single scientific expedition to Mt. Everest in the Khumbu Region of Nepal as part of National Geographic and Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Expeditions partnership. Team members from eight countries, including 17 Nepalese researchers conducted trailblazing research in five areas of science that are critical to understanding environmental changes and their impacts: biology, glaciology, meteorology, geology and mapping. To learn more visit: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/topic/perpetual-planet
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
First report of Pallas’s cat in Sagarmatha National Park - Mount Everest Region, Nepal
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-Jan-2023
Animals: Cat-egorising play and genuine fighting in cats
The behaviour of cat interactions has been categorised into playful, aggressive and intermediate groups that may help owners distinguish between play and genuine fighting. The study, published in Scientific Reports, suggests that cats may engage in a mixture of playful and aggressive behaviours, which could escalate into a fight if not managed by the owner.
Noema Gajdoš‑Kmecová and colleagues evaluated 105 video clips sourced from YouTube and directly from cat owners of interactions between 210 cats. Based on initial observations of the cats, the authors assembled six observable behaviour categories including wrestling, chasing and vocalisation, which they then used to assess the remaining cats. Cats were grouped based on the frequency and duration of the six behaviours. Separately, four of the authors reviewed the same videos and came up with three groups to define the interactions between cats: ‘playful’ (friendly interactions); ‘agonistic’ (aggressive interactions); or a third category, ‘intermediate’ (a mixture of both playful and aggressive behaviour).
More than a half of the cats (56.2% or 118 cats) were described by the authors as playful in their interaction, 28.6% (60 cats) were labelled as agonistic, and 15.2% (32 cats) were labelled as intermediate.
When comparing the cat behaviour groups with the three interaction groupings defined by the authors, they found that wrestling behaviour between cats was most closely associated with the playful group, while vocalization and chasing were associated with the agonistic group. The intermediate group, while observed as having characteristics of both, was more closely related to the playful group than the agonistic group. The intermediate group showed prolonged exchanges of behaviours such as laying on their back with their belly upwards, pouncing, stalking, and approaching and grooming each other.
The authors suggest that this combination of playful and aggressive behaviours may reflect a short-term disagreement in social behaviour between the cats, rather than a break-down in the relationship. The authors suggest that identifying potential tension between cats may help owners manage the relationship to avoid escalation and the need for separation.
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Article details
An ethological analysis of close-contact inter-cat interactions determining if cats are playing, fighting, or something in between
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-26121-1
Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26121-1
JOURNAL
Scientific Reports
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