Big cat facts for kids: 9 cats to research

The cat family, Felidae, has around 40 wild species, and every one of them is a hunter built on the same plan: forward-facing eyes for judging distance, claws that retract so they stay sharp, and teeth shaped to slice rather than chew. The roaring cats of the genus Panthera — lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard and snow leopard (which, oddly, cannot roar) — are the ones most people mean by big cats. Lions are the only social cats, living in prides; the others hunt alone. Tigers are the largest, cheetahs the fastest at over 100 km/h, and leopards have the widest range, from South Africa to the Russian Far East. Most big cats are in trouble: the IUCN lists tigers as Endangered and lions, cheetahs, leopards and snow leopards as Vulnerable, with fewer than 100 Amur leopards left in the wild. The pages below cover each species, plus the domestic cat that shares their design at a tenth of the size.