Weird and Wonderful: The Fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox)
Weird and Wonderful is a series on strange and obscure (and not so obscure) creatures that inhabit our amazing Earth.
Let’s kick things off with an animal that I’ve always found fascinating ever since I learned about it a few years ago, the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox).
So, I bet you’re asking, what on earth is a fossa? Well, if you watched the movie Madagascar (2005), then you might have some idea as to what these creatures are since they were featured briefly as antagonists.
The fossa is the largest carnivore indigenous to Madagascar and is closely related to the mongoose family (Herpestidae). They can live for up to 20 years in captivity, although I wasn’t able to find any information on their life expectancy in the wild.
Found mostly in forested areas, these strange mammals have semi-retractable claws and a tail as long as its body, which they use to climb trees and leap from branch to branch. While they do spend most of their time in the trees, they often come back to the ground to hunt. The fossa is cathemeral, meaning they can be active at any time both during the day and at night. Their prey of choice is mostly lemurs but have also been known to eat whatever they can get their paws on including rodents, lizards, birds and even insects.
While it’s considered a solitary animal, there have been known cases of males cooperatively hunting together and sharing prey, mothers with their young, and breeding pairs. In fact, one study in particular observed three male fossas hunt and share a sifaka lemur, leading them to believe that cooperative hunting in fossas could have enabled them to take down large extinct lemurs (Lührs and Dammhahn, 2009).
One of the peculiar aspects of the fossa is their external genitals. Much like hyenas, female fossa develop masculine features such as an enlarged, spiny clitoris that resembles a penis. However, unlike hyenas, the size of the clitoris decreases as the animal grows older. There’s some speculation that this reduces the sexual harassment of young females by males or reduces territorial aggression from other females.
The fossa is a confusing and fascinating animal and what makes it even more interesting is the confusion surrounding its taxonomic classification.
Just looking at a picture, you can see that the fossa has very cat-like features, making it almost appear like a small cougar, with its large round eyes, the shape of its teeth and general shape of its face. It even has a similar tongue to felines. However, the fossa also shares similar traits with viverrids (a family containing civets and other similar mammals) such as semi-retractable claws and an anal pouch which contains its scent glands used for communication.
In fact, the first person to describe the fossa, Edward Turner Bennett, originally placed it within the Viverridae family as a type of civet. Since then, the fossa has also been placed within its own subfamily in Felidae (the cat family), back to Viverridae and then back into Felidae before finally being placed within its own family along with other Madagascar carnivores thanks to DNA analysis.
So, where is it now?
Well, it’s in the family Eupleridae under the umbrella of Feliformia (cat-like carnivores) in the genus Cryptoprocta. And that is where it’s going to stay.
Unfortunately, the fossa is listed as a vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, meaning that it’s likely to become endangered unless something is done. This is due to a number of factors including deforestation, being hunted for bushmeat as well as diseases such as canine distemper and anthrax being transmitted to them via feral cats and dogs.
Hopefully something can be done to protect this strange and wonderful species as there’s nothing quite like the fossa anywhere else in the world.
Join me next time for some more on weird and wonderful creatures.
Sources
Clare E. Hawkins, John F. Dallas, Paul A. Fowler, Rosie Woodroffe, Paul A. Racey, Transient Masculinization in the Fossa, Cryptoprocta ferox (Carnivora, Viverridae), Biology of Reproduction, Volume 66, Issue 3, 1 March 2002, Pages 610–615, https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod66.3.610
Lührs, ML., Dammhahn, M. An unusual case of cooperative hunting in a solitary carnivore. J Ethol 28, 379–383 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-009-0190-8
“Fossa (animal) — Wikipedia.” Accessed August 31, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossa_(animal)
