Felinus

They aren't bald, the hair is just thinner there. But I too wonder how come.
 
"Felinus"? I think you mean "Felis." It's the name of the genus that includes most of the smaller species of cats (as well as the mountain lion, go figure), including Felis cattus, the ones that live with us. Felis is the Classical Latin word for cat, and cattus is the Vulgar Latin word that was passed down into the modern Romance languages. French "chat," Spanish "gato," etc.
 
Fur muffles sound. So cats tend to have sparse hair in front of each ear. A cat shouldn't be bald in between its ears but the hair there is very short and will often stick straight out. If you look at it straight on you can probably see its skin and it might look thin. If you cat just has a bald spot between its ears take it to a vet, it probably has some kind of skin disease.

~Raithere
 
Actually, other fur-covered animals also have thinner hair at the entrance of the ear.
 
John Connellan said:
Do NOT attemp to try and beat Rosa in an argument about felines! :D

*Just a warning* :eek: :D
Click to expand...

Ah, and you would know, since you have first hand, oops, first claw experience!
Heh.
 
I'd believe in the hearing hypothesis. Interesting to note is the case of the owl. I remember seeing a documentary on them quite a while back. It spoke about the feathers around it's head. The one's in front of it's ears were . . . what's the word?. . . structured in such a way that sound was able to flow through them very easily. Immediately behind it's ears are long feathers that trap the sound and channel it down to it's ear holes. So, it's as if all the feathers in front aren't there ant the feathers behind act as huge ears. Owls hear quite well you know. ;)


Speaking of cats and fur. Rosa's probably going to despise this statement. But, I've heard that the pattern of black and white on a siamese cat has to do with patterns of heat loss. And that if you shaved a siamese cat, it's fur would grown back with a different pattern than before. I believe that I learned this from that infamous bullshit teacher in high school though. So, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this is crap. He also spoke of pandas having this same function.
 
Invert, there are genes that are temperature sensitive. It's true that Siamese and Himalayan cats have this, but it's only really an issue in the extremities (which is why the legs, tail and face are often darker than the body, and why they sometimes have white feet). I doubt, however, that the cat would look completely different after you shaved it and let it's fur regrow. I bet it would look almost identical.
 
That's specially easy to note in black cats, they really seems a bit bald.
I do not think that's an evolved adaptive trait, anyway. Maybe it just doesn't affect for bad (thus being selected more "haired" cats) and is at the same time a unavoidable result of the body development....

About cat's taxonomy, the mountain lion is in the genus Felis only in some old classifications, where all (or at least the extant or recently extinct ones) cats were divided in only three genus (genuses? Geni?) In Felis, all the "small" cats, except cheetah, that was the only in its own genus (Acinonyx), from the smallest, whatever it may be, to the biggest of the small ones (the mountain lion) , and in Panthera, all the big cats, leopard, jaguar, lion and tiger. But there are classifications that split Felis in some other groups, the mountain lion is Puma concolor, for example, rather than Felis concolor.
 
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