Smallest wild cat

The world's smallest species of wild cat is the rusty-spotted cat Prionailurus rubiginosus, which is native to southern India and Sri Lanka. It has a head-and-body length of 35–48 cm, a tail length of 15–25 cm, and an average body weight in adult males of only 1.5–1.6 kg. It is closely related to the somewhat larger and more familiar Asian leopard cat P. bengalensis, from which the domestic cat breed known as the Bengal has been created by initially mating domestics with leopard cats.

Only very slightly larger and, indeed, often (mistakenly) claimed in the media to be the world's smallest wild cat species is the black-footed cat Felis nigripes of southern Africa. This species sports a head-and-body length of 34–50 cm, a tail length of 15–20 cm, and an average weight in adult males of 1.6–2.1 kg.