On February 24, 2025, La Poste issues a block of four stamps in the Fauna and Flora series, illustrated by felines: the cheetah, the lynx, the black panther and the tiger.
Agile. And mysterious. Often solitary and hunters. With a supple silhouette with thick fur, penetrating eyes, capable of seeing at night. The family of felines, or felids, is large, made up of 38 species in total, 38 types of carnivorous mammals whose anatomy and physiology present a great homogeneity of the legs of which only the fingers touch the ground, a body with a skeleton with a floating clavicle, favoring speed, sometimes lightning fast. Binocular vision, powerful jaws, sharp claws, often retractable, which make them formidable predators. But this homogeneity does not prevent a great diversity among the representatives of the species: in size, coat, colors. Where the Siberian or Bengal tiger can exceed 3 meters in length, the lynx in Europe and on the North American continent generally measures less than a meter, and the reddish cat of the Indian subcontinent does not exceed 50 centimeters.
Within the felines, two large groups are distinguished, that of the pantherines or big cats (the lion, the jaguar, the tiger, the leopard and the panther), and that of the felines whose head is generally rounder. Among the latter, we find in particular the domestic cat but also the puma, the cheetah and many other subspecies. Note that the lion is the only one to stand out from other felines by its sociable behavior and group habits, especially during hunting which it knows how to practice in groups.
Felines are found on all continents, although in Australia they are only represented by domestic cats. But many of them are now threatened by habitat loss, deforestation and hunting. Among them, the tiger almost disappeared in the 1960s; although conservation efforts have prevented this, its population remains fragile. As for the African cheetah, the fastest mammal in the world, it only survives in the wild in a few deserts and savannahs, from Chad to Namibia, from Algeria to Ethiopia. Finally, the leopard, of which the black panther is a representative, remains the feline with the largest distribution area in the wild.
