Исследовательская работа по теме : " Дикие кошки."

Частное общеобразовательное учреждение «Крымская республиканская гимназия – школа- сад Консоль»

Private School «Consol»

Дикие кошки

Wild cats

Природоведение

Шелаева Милана Дмитриевна

ученица 3-Б класса

Шелаев Федор Дмитриевич

ученик 3-Б класса         

Дмитриенко Светлана Михайловна,

учитель английского языка

Симферополь, 2021

Contents

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………..p.3

2. Wild cats: what are they? …………………………………………… p.4

2a. Habitat ………………………………………………………………p.4

2b. Fur …………………………………………………………………. p.5

2c. Mouths and teeth …………………………………………………….p.5

2d. Senses ………………………………………………………………..p.6

2e. Tails ………………………………………………………………….p.6

2f. Food …………………………………………………………………p..7

2g. Baby cats ……………………………………………………………p.7

3. Practical part of the study ……………………………………………p.8

4. Overview ……….……………………………………………………p. 10

5. Resources ……………………………………………………………p.11

1.Introduction

The topic of our report is wild cats. We love animals very much. We have got 6 dogs, two parrots, a hamster and of course pet cats. Our pet cats are gracious, nice and clever animals but we wanted to know how wild cats differ from pet cats. We think this topic is very interesting and useful because it helps to understand the behaviour of cats and their habits. Working on the report we read some books and found some information on the Internet.

The aim of our research is

·        to learn the information about wild cats;

·        to define how much wild cats differ from pet cats and/or how much they are the same.

The object of the research is wild cats.

The subject of the research is their behaviour, habits and way of life.

The hypothesis: wild cats belong to the cats’ family and have much in common with pet cats.

Methods of research:

·        analysis of literature;

·        questionnaire;

·        observation;

·        comparison;

·        generalization.

2. Wild cats: what are they?

Pet cats live with people. People give them food and take care of them.  Wild cats don’t live with people.  They live in wild nature and they find food themselves. Wild cats are mammals and there are more than 30 species of them. All of us know lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs and lynx. Wild cats are typical predators, they hunt at night or early in the morning. Big cats track their prey, come to it as close as possible, but remain unnoticed.

Pict.1 Wild cats of the world

2a. Habitats

There are wild cats all around the world. Cats live in cold places and in hot places. Cats live on the ground and in the trees.  For example, the snow leopard is a big cat. It lives in snowy mountains. It has thick fur to stay warm.  The margay lives in rainforests. It can climb well, and it can lives in trees. The black-footed cat is a little cat. It lives in hot places. It can’t climb well. It lives in holes in the ground.

Pict.2 The margay                          Pict.3 A black-footed cat

2b. Fur

Cats have fur to stay warm. Their fur helps them to hide from other animals, too. Cheetahs have spots. Baby cheetahs have long white fur, too. They can hide in grass.

           

Pict.4 Cheetahs                          Pict.5 A mountain cat

Tigers have orange and black stripes. They can hide in long grass. The mountain cat has spots and stripes. It can hide on rocks.  Sand cats have fur on the bottom of their paws. This protects them from hot sand.

2c. Mouths and teeth

Cats have a big strong mouth. Some big cats use their mouth to roar. Then other cats know where they are. They roar to say they are angry or sad. Wild cats have long, sharp teeth too. The clouded leopard has four long teeth to help it to hunt deer, monkeys and birds. Many cats bite trees. This makes their teeth very sharp. Cats use their tongues to clean their fur.

      

Pict.6 A Clouded leopard                      Pict .7 A lion

2d. Senses

Cats use their senses. They can hear, see and smell very well. This helps them to move around and hunt other animals. The serval has big ears. It hunts mice.  It can hear the mice under the ground. Cats can see well at night. The ocelot has white fur around its eyes. This helps it to see well.  Some cats can smell well too. The lynx can smell a rabbit that’s 300 meters away.

2e. Tails

Many cats have a long, strong tail. Their tail helps them to run and turn. The puma uses its tail to help it to jump and land on its paws. Cats can use their tail to show they are happy, sad or scared. The snow leopard has a long, thick tail. It can put its tail around its body.  This helps it to stay warm in the snowy mountains. The jaguar uses its tail to hunt fish. It moves the water with its tail.

 Pict.8       Pict.9      

2f. Food

Cats eat meat. Big cats hunt antelopes, zebras and other big animals, little wild cats eat birds, mice, snakes. They hide in grass and look for animals. Big cats strong and they can run very fast to hunt other animals. Cats have long, sharp claws to help them to hunt other animals.

Pict.10 A cheetah is chasing an antelope.

2g. Baby cats

Wild cats protect their babies from other animals. Baby cats can’t eat any meat, they drink milk from their mother.  Cats help their babies to move around, they carry their babies in their mouths. Baby cats love to have fun. They jump and play together, this is fun and it helps the babies to learn how to hunt.

      

Pict.11 Baby tigers                    Pict.12 Cougars

3. The practical part of the study.

Have you got a pet cat? Does your pet cat sleep much/eat meat/play with food/play with toys/like catnip/hunt at night? We asked these questions to the teachers and the students of the 3-4^th forms and we got the following data: 28 people have got 36 pet cats (some people have got 2 or even 3 pet cats). 32 cats sleep a lot, 25 cats eat meat, 20 cats like to play with food, 32 cats play with toys, 12 cats like catnip, 14 cats hunt at night.

Diagram 1.what pet cats can do

We also watched our two pet cats Fanisha and Snesha.  They are one year old.  Their fur is white and fluffy. Our cats can run, jump and climb well.  Fanisha and Snesha are very clever.  They are very independent and like to be alone. When they were little kittens they loved to play with different toys, balls and strings. Fanisha and Snesha purr when we stroke them.

We compared the received information about pet cats with the information about wild animals that we read in books and on the Internet and we can say that there are more similarities than differences between pet cats and wild cats. The results of our research are presented in tables.

Wild cats	Pet cats
Dangerous, more aggressive	calm and gentle
live in wild nature	live with people
find food themselves	people feed  them
don’t like human interaction and contact	like human interaction and contact
have round pupils	have vertical pupils
can roar	purr
like water	hate water
have larger brains
bigger in size and weight

Table1.  Differences between wild cats and pet cats

Both wild cats and pet cats

sleep 16-20 hours a day

have great sense of smell, they open their mouths to smell better

are meat eaters

clean themselves a lot

stalk their prey and usually hunt at night or early in the morning

like playing with toys, laser pointers, strings or like playing in boxes

like catnip

mark territory

can “talk”: meowing, chirping , roaring

play with food or hide it

like kneading

walk on their toes

have four toes on their back feet and five toes on their front feet

eat grass to help digestion

take care of their babies

Table 2.  Similarities between wild cats and pet cats

4. Overview

Working on the report, we have known a lot of interesting facts about cats. Sum up, both wild cats and pet cats are amazing animals. There are more similarities than differences between them and it is so because they are cats. We should take care of our pet cats and protect wild cats that are in danger now.

Pict.13 A Lynx

5. Resources

1.     Read and discover. Wild cats.-Oxford University Press, 2013

2.     animal.com

3.     animal.discovery.com

4.      sciencekids.co.nz/

5.     www.scottsdalepethotel.com

6.     en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat

7.     www.science101.com