# The role of scent marking in a free-ranging, female black-footed cat (Felis nigripes)

> By following one habituated black-footed cat through the night for 575 hours, researchers in South Africa’s Northern Cape counted 1454 urine-sprays. She hardly marked when pregnant and not at all while raising kittens, then averaged up to 36 sprays an hour a night in the weeks before mating, all across the areas she used most. Her scent marks seem to tell males when she is ready to breed, and her silence may help keep her kittens hidden.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1998-molteno-sliwa-role-scent-marking-free/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** A. J. Molteno, A. Sliwa and P. R. K. Richardson
- **Year published:** 1998
- **Journal or source:** Journal of Zoology
- **Full citation:** Molteno, A. J., Sliwa, A. and Richardson, P. R. K. 1998. The role of scent marking in a free-ranging, female black-footed cat (Felis nigripes). Journal of Zoology 245(1): 35-41.
- **DOI:** 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1998.tb00069.x
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1998.tb00069.x

## Tags

- **Species:** Mammals > Black-footed cat
- **Region:** Africa > South Africa
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Communication; Denning; Home range; Movement
- **Methods and technology:** Descriptive statistics; Direct observation; Global Positioning System (GPS); Radio telemetry
- **Data type:** New field data
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Behaviour and ecology
- **Year published:** 1998

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: one adult female black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) and her kittens (three litters). Also seen: an adult male black-footed cat with the female and her kittens on 6 December 1993. Possible predator of kittens named in the discussion: black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas). Plant sprayed: the small karroid bush Pentzia spinescens. Species discussed from other studies: serval, domestic cat, tiger, lion, cheetah, mountain lion, Spanish lynx, red fox, wolf, bobcat.
- **Location and habitat:** Benfontein, an 11,400 ha game farm owned by De Beers Consolidated Mines, about 10 km south-east of Kimberley, Northern Cape Province, South Africa (28°50’S, 24°50’E). Vegetation includes elements of Kalahari thornveld, pure grassveld and the Karoo. Cold, dry winters (May to August) with night frost; summer (October to March) average maximum temperatures above 30 °C; average annual rainfall 431 ± 127 mm.
- **Topics:** scent marking, urine-spraying, chemical communication, advertising reproductive state (oestrus), mate attraction and location, seasonal breeding, litters and birth dates, gestation, parental care, dens and moving kittens, social spacing and mutual avoidance, distribution of scent marks within the home range (not concentrated at the edges), cheek-rubbing, defecation and covering of scats, squatting (eliminative) urination, rolling, clawing, kitten predation risk, habituation of a wild cat to a following vehicle.
- **Statistics or models:** Descriptive only: counts of urine-sprays, spraying frequencies (sprays per hour of direct observation), hours observed and distances travelled per observation period. Path and sprays mapped on a grid of 16 ha cells. No statistical tests.
- **Data type:** New field data: seven observation periods between 5 May 1993 and 25 October 1994 (575 hours 33 minutes of direct observation over 402 km). Inconsistencies in the paper: the heading of Table 1 says “May 1993 to October 1995”, while the methods and the table’s own rows end in October 1994; the caption of Figure 2a ends the period on 20 October 1994, while Table 1’s last period runs to 25 October 1994. The abstract (in the text layer of this copy) is partly garbled at the sentence about pregnancy.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

The black-footed cat is one of the world’s smallest wild cats (1 to 2 kg), solitary, nocturnal and secretive, so little was known about their lives in the wild. Small cats mark mostly by spraying a fine mist of urine onto grass and bushes, which the authors say is almost impossible to find later by indirect methods. To learn how and why this cat scent marks, they watched one directly.

- Catching and collaring. A female was caught in her den, immobilized and fitted with a 50 g radio collar.

- Habituation. She was habituated until she ignored a four-wheel-drive vehicle following her at 10 to 15 m. Each evening she was found by radio-telemetry and followed by headlight and spotlight, for anything from half an hour to the whole night.

- Recording. Every 2 to 10 minutes or so, the observer spoke the time, her position and the number of urine-sprays since the last record into a pocket dictaphone. Her position was first plotted against surveyed markers, and early in the study by Global Positioning System (GPS) instead. Her path and every spray were mapped on a grid of 16 ha cells.

- Other marking behaviours. They also recorded defecation, squatting urination, cheek-rubbing, rolling on her back and clawing the ground.

- Linking marking to breeding. Spraying rates (sprays per hour of time she was in view) for each of seven observation periods, from May 1993 to October 1994, were compared with her reproductive state: pregnant, with dependent kittens, or neither.

### 2. What they found

Urine-spraying

- Urine-spraying was by far the most common form of marking, seen 1454 times in 575 hours over 402 km. She lifted and vibrated her tail while treading with her hind legs, spraying small karroid bushes, grass clumps and, rarely, termite mounds.

- The authors say this count is certainly an underestimate, because the act is brief and she was hard to watch at night.

- With dependent kittens: no spraying at all.

- Pregnant: spraying at low rates (0.84 and 0.95 sprays per hour). It began after mating and stopped before the birth.

- Before mating: in the June/July 1994 period, about one and a half months before the calculated mating for her third litter (8 to 13 August 1994), her nightly rate rose from 5.22 to 35.92 sprays per hour within 15 days. She once sprayed 40 times in 619 m and 41 times in 685 m. That one period gave 1348 of the 1454 sprays.

- In May 1993, with no kittens and not pregnant, she sprayed at a modest rate (average 2.07 sprays per hour).

- Before the mating that produced her second litter (December 1993), no spraying was seen, probably because she still had her first litter.

Where she marked

- Sprays were not concentrated along the edges of her range. The densest spraying was in the areas she used most during the rest of the year.

- Without kittens she covered a wider area each night. Kittens kept her close to the den, because she kept returning to feed them.

Other marking behaviours (all rare)

- Cheek-rubbing on grass tufts, bushes or termite mounds: 7 times, all in the June/July period.

- Squatting urination: 42 times, all in periods when she was not spraying; three times on top of a termite mound.

- Defecation: 19 times, casually while travelling, never with a scrape. Only two scats were covered, both close to the kittens’ den. She was never seen to defecate on prominent objects, but scats were found on termite mounds.

- Rolling on her back: 4 times. Clawing with the front paws: twice.

- Kittens were never seen to scent mark.

Breeding

- She raised three litters: two litters of two kittens each in the 1993/94 summer, and a third at the start of the 1994/95 summer.

- The first litter was found on 19 November 1993, already over five weeks old. Births of the second (20 February 1994, in a hollowed-out termite mound) and third (20 October 1994) litters were observed.

- She cared for kittens for about 10 to 12 weeks; they were left alone at the den while she hunted. The father played no part in their care.

- Oestrus could not be recognized from her behaviour and no matings were seen. Mating dates were back-calculated from a gestation of 63 to 68 days.

- On 6 December 1993 an adult male was seen following the female while she still had kittens, 9 to 14 days before the calculated mating for her second litter. He showed no interest in the kittens.

### 3. What they concluded

- The main role of urine-spraying in this female appears to be advertising her reproductive state to males. The authors suggest this matters for a solitary cat with a very short oestrus (about 36 hours) in an arid land, where she may have only one night to mate. The rise six weeks before mating may reflect one or more earlier oestrous periods.

- Spraying throughout her range, especially where she spent the most time, may help a neighbouring male find her within a shared range.

- She also sprayed at low rates whenever she had no dependent young, so spraying may also help maintain social spacing through mutual avoidance. Spraying may keep cats apart for most of the year and bring the sexes together for mating.

- Stopping spraying while she had kittens, and covering scats near the den, may reduce the risk of predators (for example, black-backed jackal) finding the kittens. The authors suggest that early in the breeding season spraying helps her breed, while later protecting the kittens she has already invested in matters more.

- Cheek-rubbing, seen only before mating, may also signal reproductive state. Scats may play a role in communication, which needs further study. Squatting urination appears to be simply elimination. The few claw scratches seemed not to be signals, since she did not reuse paths; they may be comfort behaviour or help shed old claw sheaths.

- Understanding scent marking in this species needs data from males and females, their use of home range, and how neighbouring cats respond to marks. The authors planned to address these as more cats were studied.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Habituating a small, secretive wild cat so that she could be followed closely from a vehicle at night and watched directly.

- Radio collar (50 g, range about 800 m), Yaesu FT 290 R II receiver and two 3-element Yagi antennas.

- Switching from surveyed ground markers to GPS for positions, so less time was spent fixing her location and fewer sprays were missed.

- Spoken notes on a pocket dictaphone every few minutes, mapped onto a 16 ha grid.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- The authors note that urine sprayed on grass or small shrubs is almost impossible to detect by indirect methods. For a small cat, most scent marks leave little or nothing a tracker can see, so counts of visible marking signs would miss most of the marking.

- The places a tracker might find black-footed cat sign are hinted at here: scats on termite mounds, an occasional covered scat near a den, a squatting urination on top of a termite mound, and dens in hollowed-out termite mounds.

- Marking changed sharply with breeding state, from none with kittens to dozens of sprays an hour before mating. The amount of marking sign in an area may say as much about the season and a female’s breeding state as about how many cats are present.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: The role of scent marking in a free-ranging, female black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) (Molteno and Sliwa et al., 1998). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1998-molteno-sliwa-role-scent-marking-free/