Cretan wildcat is the largest carnivorous animal living in the mountains of Crete

The Cretan (Felis silvestris cretensis) is its only wild cat and the largest purely flesh-eating animal living on the island. It was a ghost animal and was considered extinct until 1996, until two students, members of an Italian scientific expedition studying the carnivores of Crete, framed the Cretan wildcat, giving “sarcas and bones” to the myths about the wild cat. As it is a highly cryptic species, for its recording phototraps were placed in its habitats. As the researcher of the Museum of Natural History of Crete, Petros Lyberakis, explains, it was important to do the recording research of the species, since it is a top predator in the food chain and, when there is a problem with an ecosystem, the first animals to disappear are the top predators. For the species there was so far only sporadic scientific evidence of its population and distribution. The Cretan wildcat maintains satisfactory numbers, despite the threats it faces, which is primarily hybridism with the common cat, the poisoned baits, the fragmentation of its habitats with the open opening of roads, the conflict with livestock, as the majority of livestock feeders believe that the Cretan wildcat preys on young sheep and goats and causes damage to animal capital, and, to a lesser extent, stray dogs. Given the problem of hybridism, but also the lack of knowledge about the taxonomics of the species, the next objective is to collect genetic material for utilization in molecular techniques, to control the size of the hybridism problem and to ascertain its taxonomic position in relation to European (Felis silvestris) and African (Felis libyca) wildcat.