- New footage shows Gaia posing on a log in her enclosure, showing off her black stripes and tiny toes, looking around curiously and pulling her ears
- The three-pound cat may be cute, but it’s also the world’s deadliest wild cat
- Gaia arrived in Utah last October from the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas, where she was born to a litter of four in May
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Adorable black-footed African cat Gaia poses in cute new videos released by her zoo home in Utah.
Gaia’s big eyes and soft outer disguise that she is actually the world’s deadliest wildcat.
New footage released by the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City shows Gaia posing on a log in her enclosure, showing off her black stripes and tiny toes.
Another clip, posted on the zoo’s popular Instagram account, shows the three-pound cat looking around curiously and tugging at its ears.
‘So cute and fluffy and soooo deadly,’ one Gaia fan wrote under the video.
Adorable black-footed African cat Gaia poses in cute new videos released by her new Utah zoo home
New footage released by Hogle Zoo shows Gaia posing on a log in her enclosure, showing off her black stripes and tiny toes
“She’s fluffy, she’s sassy and she’s deadly,” gushed another.
Gaia arrived in Utah last October from the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas, where she was born to a litter of four in May.
After being unveiled to the public in January, the spotted cat was described as a ‘pretty feisty cat’ and a ‘mighty warrior’ by the zoo’s associate director Bob Cisneros.
Gaia is on a strict diet of ground bones, skeletal muscles and organs and “the occasional mouse that has already been humanely euthanized through the zoo’s distributors,” Cisernos said last month.
The zoo took in Gaia following a breeding recommendation from the Black-Footed Cat Consortium.
Hogle Zoo is home to a black-footed male cat named Ryder, which they plan to introduce to Gaia in the future.
“Gaia’s introduction to Ryder, the black-footed male cat, is in the cards, but we will let these two feline friends get to know each other when Gaia reaches maturity,” the zoo said earlier this year.
Black-footed cats are deadly hunters, with a 60 percent success rate compared to the roughly 20 percent success rate of larger cats.
Despite Gaia’s extremely unassuming appearance, black-footed cats are considered to be among the deadliest cats in the world
Gaia, a small black-footed African cat, arrived in Utah from Glen Rose, Texas, last October after being born in May
Black-footed cats are deadly hunters with a 60 percent success rate compared to the roughly 20 percent success rate of larger cats
The carnivores can eat about 3,000 rodents a year in their natural habitats, according to Hogle Zoo.
Pictured: Gaia is snacking on a bone as part of the strict and specific diet she is currently on
The carnivores can eat about 3,000 rodents a year in their natural habitats, according to Hogle Zoo. They also eat birds, reptiles, insects and spiders.
‘These guys are ferocious hunters. They have a reputation for being a very fierce cat,’ Cisneros explained.
Despite their miniature stature, they can also jump up to five feet in the air and six and a half feet in distance.
Black-footed cats are native to Africa and are mostly found in the dry eastern parts of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. They are the smallest species of wild cat found on the continent.
In the African language they are called ‘anthill tigers’.
The species is listed as vulnerable – just one step before threatened – by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
A 2016 assessment found that only about 9,700 of the killer cats live in the wild in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.