The Black-Footed Cat — The Deadliest Predator You've Never Heard Of

It weighs four pounds. It would fit in your hands. It looks like something out of a children's book — round face, oversized eyes, soft tabby markings. And it kills more animals in a single night than a lion kills in a week. The black-footed cat of southern Africa has the highest hunting success rate of any predator on earth — roughly 60 percent of every strike ends in a kill, ten times higher than a lion's, six times higher than a leopard's, and higher than any wolf, tiger, or bear ever recorded. It is, by the only metric that actually matters, the most lethal cat on the planet. And almost no one has heard of it. This is the story of the smallest cat in Africa, the deadliest predator on the continent, and why size has almost nothing to do with lethality. — Topics covered: Why the smallest cat in Africa has the highest kill rate of any predator on earth The physical engineering that makes a four-pound cat the most efficient hunter alive The three hunting strategies black-footed cats use — and switch between seamlessly The mental maps and prey memory that show feline intelligence rivaling much larger cats The Karoo grasslands of southern Africa and what makes them so dangerous Why the deadliest cat on earth is also one of the most fragile The kidney disease and habitat loss quietly erasing the species — #blackfootedcat #wildlife #nature #documentary #cats #africa #predators