The Fossa - Not a Feline

Native to the island of Madagascar, the fossa somewhat resembles a cougar in appearance. And although this carnivore does have a lot of cat-like qualities, it is actually most closely related to the mongoose family.

Photo: Ran Kirlian

Fossas have a body length of around thirty inches and usually weigh less than 20lbs. They can be found throughout Madagascar’s remaining forest tracts using their excellent hearing and eyesight to hunt lemurs and other small mammals and birds. They are extremely quick and agile animals and are excellent climbers.

Photo: Chad Teer

Fossas are quite solitary animals that mainly live and hunt alone except during the mating season, when hunting parties may be formed. Females give birth to litters of up to six young in underground dens where the baby fossas will stay for the first four months of their lives. Fossas can live for up to twenty years, but like many animals in Madagascar, they are threatened by habitat loss.

Animals In Literature

Rudyard Kipling wasn't just the author of The Jungle Book. He also penned the delightful Just So Stories. In these tales, Kipling explained to his readers how animals became the way they are today. He talked to us as his own children, frequently calling us "Best Beloved," and used rhyme and repetition to entertain.

Perhaps the most famous of these stories is The Elephants Child. In the tale, elephants only have funny, stubby noses. It takes an elephant, a new elephant, an elephant's child "full of 'satiable curtiosity" who travels to the "great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees" and returns with a glorious trunk. But to find out how he got it, and what he did with it, you'll have to read the book.

Kipling also told us How the Leopard got its Spots, How the Whale got its Throat, and How the Rhino got its Skin. In The Crab who Played with the Sea, we find the reason for tides and in The Butterfly that Stamped we learn the benefits of being humble. He introduced us to exotic places and intriguing animals. I didn't even know there was such a creature as a mongoose until I read Kipling's story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

I have always loved Kipling's animal stories. Not because he takes his characters and imbues them with human traits, but because he imbues them with more than human traits. His animals are wiser, more tolerant, more just and far nobler than we humans could hope to be.