This Kitty Looks Adorable But Scientists Say It’s The Deadliest Cat On Earth

Poison dart frogs are some of the smallest amphibians in the world, and the deadliest.

Tiny cone snails are among the most venomous creatures on the planet. With the ability to produce up to 100 different toxins, a sting from them can be deadly to humans.

And of course, all those tiny microbes that cause hideous diseases are very, very small.

This all proves that danger doesn’t always come in large packages. It also doesn’t always come in scary-looking packages, either!

Take for instance the Black-Footed Cat, Africa’s smallest cat, which is also the world’s deadliest.

Weighing in at only three to five pounds, these little cats pack an awfully big wallop!

Firstly, they have an amazing 60% success rate when hunting, which is the highest among all wild felines.

To put that in perspective, our killing machine house cats have a hunting success rate of only 32%, and a lone lion succeeds just 18% of the time.

Thanks to a hidden camera, researchers have been able to learn quite a bit more about the Black-Footed Cat, especially one beautiful female specimen they’ve named Gyra.

She and her kitten live in the Karoo Desert in South Africa. According to the BBC, she may walk up to 20 miles in a night to hunt for prey.

Their home is a burrow in the ground where the kitten stays for safety while mom is out hunting.

Unlike most other cats, they prefer the ground and rarely climb trees (maybe they know better!).

According to Big Cat Rescue, “The underside of the paw and the paw pads are black. That is where their name comes from.”

As we all do, Gyra has her favorite foods and according to what they’ve seen on the video, her absolute favorite is gerbils.

However, also like most of us, she will eat whatever she can find when she’s hungry enough; her main meals include small birds and any rodent she can find in the desert.

It’s hard to imagine that anything so cute and cuddly looking could be such a lethal murder machine! But, they were designed strictly for the kill.

Black-footed cats stalk their prey and wait for the perfect moment to pounce. The key is to wiggle and get as low as possible to the ground with their legs tucked under them.

Their legs act like springs and allow them to leap high in the air to capture the prey.

It’s rare to see one of these beauties, as they are nocturnal and solitary unless it is mating season, so they can be tough to find.

However, thanks to modern conveniences like video cameras, we can watch one rare black-footed cat hunt and interact with her kitten.

Africa's smallest cat is also the world's deadliest! ?#BigCats continues this Thursday 8pm on @BBCOne pic.twitter.com/TSZ5gJ6Lpa

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) January 15, 2018

These furry little guys don’t kill their prey with cuteness, that’s for sure! 😉

Sources: BBC, The Animal Rescue Site