The Sugar-Kick Carnivores

Despite a high diversity of small carnivores in Africa, little is known about their ecology and their role as primary and secondary consumers.

- Lorraine Doyle

This is partly due to our general focus on what I like to call the ‘hairies and scaries’ – those large and charismatic animals that possess features such as tusks, horns, or very large teeth! We often overlook the smaller, and often nocturnal, predators which also play a crucial rule in ecosystem functioning.

In this article, I would like to focus on one group of these small carnivores, in particular, the genets. Members of the genus Genetta (Cuvier, 1816), genets are small, spotted carnivores with wide faces and bushy tails belonging to the family Viverridae. Within southern Africa, there are three species: the South African Large-spotted genet (Genetta tigrina) – which occurs south of 32°S, the Central African Large-spotted genet (Genetta maculata), and the Small-spotted genet (Genetta genetta). There is very little obvious difference between them in the field, so the easiest way to tell them apart is by taking a look at the tip of their tail. This is black in the Large-spotted genet species and white in the Small-spotted genet.

The civets and genets belong to one of the four families of terrestrial cat-like mammals descended from the Viverraines, which were civet/genet-like mammals. These four families