The History of cats...what poeple think of this family

The archaeological evidence suggests that the cat lineage branched off from the ancestral Miacoidea (the stem group of all the Carnivora) about 45 million years ago (MYA). More modern cats, recognisably similar to our present day species, began to emerge about 25 MYA and during the last 12 million years the eight separate lineages of modern cats have emerged.
This world we live on is currently graced with the presence of 36 species of cat, see table below. (The number of species varies from 36 to 39 depending on which cat expert you consult, however 36 species is the number recognised by both CITES and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre so it is the number I have used here.)The individual size range within any given species of cat increases the larger the cat becomes and is also correlated with both its sex and with the width of its north south distribution range, with individuals being larger the further they live from the equator. Thus the weight of an adult tiger, the largest of our cats, can range from 75 Kg to 320 kg and its 'head and body length' can range from 1.45 metres to 3.18 metres. (Exceptional individuals have exceeded these normal ranges)

Therefore there is considerable overlap between species and the largest lions, jaguars and pumas can outsize the smallest tigers, nevertheless no other cat gets as large as the largest Siberian Tigers which are by far the most massive of the several subspecies of tiger currently recognised.
With such variation within species, and a very small data set for the smaller species, it is also hard to definitively nominate a smallest species. The two highest contenders must be the Rusty-spotted Cat and the Black-footed Cat both of which can weigh as little as 1.0 kg when adult. The small amount of information I have suggests that, on average, the Rusty-spotted Cat is the title holder, and this is confirmed by the Guinness Book of Animal Records.

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