Distribution
Cryptoprocta ferox © j-fi, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
This species is endemic to Madagascar (Wilson, 2005).
Habitat
Cryptoprocta ferox inhabit a variety of regions from coastal lowlands to mountainous areas of up to 2,600m but are usually only found inhabiting forested areas. They may be found passing through non-forested habitat (Hawkins, 2008).
They are terrestrial and arboreal (Hawkins, 2008) - they are excellent climbers and extremely agile when moving through trees (Nowak, 2005).
See video footage of the fossa climbing in trees on the Arkive website.
Nutrition
Cryptoprocta ferox was originally thought to prey exclusively on lemurs, but is now known to have a varied and opportunistic diet. They are adept at hunting both on the ground and in the trees (Goodman et al 2004). They feed on:
- smaller mammals (including lemurs up to around 3kg)
- birds
- insects
- amphibians
- reptiles
(Hawkins, 2008; Nowak, 2005).
See video footage of the fossa feeding on the Arkive website.
