The Great Big Cat Safari Begins~!

I recently posted about how I stumbled across the Animal Kingdom patches from this year's UD Goodwin set and immediately fell in love with the cards.  What got me most excited as I went down the list was how many cats there were, as the big cats have always been my absolute favorite animals at the Zoo because they're just so badass.  I immediately decided that collecting all of the cats from the Animal Kingdom set would have to be the newest quest here on the blog.

A quick perusal of the list revealed that 10 of the 100 cards in the set were cats.  Unless of course one of those more obscure animals turned out to be of the feline persuasion, but what are the chances of that?....

Oh....so THAT'S what a Margay is.....

OK, make that ELEVEN cats on the list.

For those of you unfamiliar with the set, the rarity of the cards is determined by the endangeredness of the animal.  Here are the cats:

"Least Concern" Category:
AK-6 - Cougar
AK-11 - Ocelot
AK-24 - Jaguarundi

"Not Threatened" Category:
AK-62 - Sand Cat
AK-63 - Margay

"Vulnerable" Category:
AK-68 - Cheetah
AK-75 - African Lion

"Endangered" Category:
AK-81 - Snow Leopard
AK-82 - Bengal Tiger

"Extinct" Category:
AK-98 - Sabre-Toothed Cat

What's that you say?  That's only 10?  Well that's because today I am also revealing the first capture of the Big Cat Safari.  From the "Least Concern" Category, #AK-54 - the Eurasian Lynx~!









These tough mothas are native to the forests of Europe and Siberia, and also parts of South and East Asia.  They typically weigh 40-65 pounds, but the Siberian variety can get up to nearly 100 pounds.  They have a reddish-brown coat in the summer that grows thicker and turns silver-gray or silver-brown in the winter months.  They have webbed and furred paws that act like snowshoes, so you're totally screwed if you're trying to run through snow to get away from one.

So mark one off the list!  I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get all 11, as I don't know how many Sabre-Toothed Cats they even printed but I'm sure it is very few, but I hope to add as many as I can slowly over time as they show up on eBay at good prices.  Of course any of you reading this who might have one of the cats (or any of the Animal Kingdom cards, for that matter) can always hit me up for a trade!