Stalking The BLACK-FOOTED CAT - wild cats in South Africa

Often, she took on other animals she met at night, including those much bigger than she. Once she jumped with bared claws and fangs into the face of a black- backed jackal--an animal eight times heavier than she. Other times, she barely gave an eye to fearsome spotted eagle owls that hunt from their perches on fence poles.

Perhaps because of her attitude, she sometimes hugely overestimated her hunting prowess. She meticulously stalked springbok lambs that in their first weeks of life were lying in grass waiting for their mother's return but were much too big to be overpowered once they struggled to their feet. The biggest prey I watched Lamu attack was a male ostrich, weighing 180 pounds. She stalked this black mountain of feathers as he sat on his nest, creeping up to him flat on the ground for more than half an hour. When she was ready to pounce, the giant bird got up, revealing monstrous feet--longer than Lamu's body--and towering for a second 6.5 feet above her before he bolted in a cloud of dust. Standing bedraggled, Lamu shook her head in frustration and trotted off.

Experiences like that convinced me that pound for pound, black-footed cats are as bold and fierce in their pursuit of prey as the anecdotes and folktales suggest. I never saw one of my study animals within 30 miles of a giraffe (no giraffes are kept on the game farm), and my research confirms there is no way this tiny tiger would take on any prey that large. But in the spirit of the Bushman legend, I did see a species fighting tooth and nail for its survival in a harsh environment full of competitors and larger predators.

Through it all, I was rewarded by Lamu's trust. By late September in year two of my study, she was getting gradually heavier, pregnant from mating with Aris. Two months later, I parked in front of her den, which was inside the top of a weathered, hollow termite mound. That night she stayed in the den. The next evening, shortly after Lamu left, I peered inside the hole, and two furry bundles hissed and spat at me. Their eyes were still closed, but the newborns were fiercely determined to put up a good fight, just like their mom.

Particularly during the hot weeks, I was always close to exhaustion as I followed Lamu, and I never slept more than five hours. The last night of my field expedition in 1995 offered a respite, however. After midnight, Lamu licked herself and then bedded down at a hole that promised to produce a fat mouse. Overcome by the gathered-up fatigue, I fell asleep and dreamed of Lamu sitting on my chest purring like a house-tiger. Minutes later, I woke with a smile and looked out of my window. Lamu, with her paws folded under her chest, was only 6 feet from my vehicle's tire. Perhaps she had come to say good-bye.

Alexander Sliwa is a German zoologist specializing in the behavior and ecology of small nocturnal carnivores. When he returned to South Africa in 1996, Lamu was gone, but her daughter Rani had taken over her territory, hunting with the same strong will to survive as had her mother.