Civets and genets | Viverridae

Civetkatten en genetkatten | Vivérridos

Long-bodied, low-legged carnivores with a pointed muzzle, a spotted coat and a long tail bearing a series of sharply drawn dark rings that takes up nearly half the animal's length. Unlike most carnivores outside the cats, the claws can be drawn in, and that makes these animals excellent climbers: they run along branches with the tail as a balance beam and come down a trunk head first. The pupil is a vertical slit, which points to an animal of the night, and the whiskers are very long. Between anus and genitals lies a gland sac yielding a strong-smelling secretion with which fixed points in the territory are marked. The menu is broad: rodents, birds, lizards, insects and fruit. They live singly. The genet of south-western Europe was almost certainly brought over from north-western Africa centuries ago.