What Was the Biggest Cat?

Roderic, age 11, asked,

“What was the biggest cat in the cat kind that ever lived?”

Thank you for your question, Roderic!

It is difficult to tell which cat was the biggest because we do not have complete fossils of many extinct species. Often, we only have a few bones or bone fragments of the creature. Here are some top contenders for the title of biggest cat:

• Amphimachairodus kabir was a saber-tooth cat in Africa. The fossils we’ve found have been in pieces, but it probably weighed around 1,080 pounds.
• Panthera atrox, also known as the American lion, was a giant ice age predator in North America. It weighed about 1,153 pounds. That’s more than twice as much as a modern lion!
• Panthera tigris soloensis, the Ngandong tiger, might have been the biggest of the three, weighing an estimated 926–1,191 pounds. It was found in Indonesia.

We may not know for sure which cat was the biggest, but we do know that God created the cat kind with incredible genetic diversity! Your little house cat and the giant Ngandong tiger both come from the cat kind that God created on day six of creation week.

After the flood, the two cats on Noah’s ark spread out and moved to different environments. Some got bigger while others got smaller. But cats are still cats, even if they look very different from one another. God gave animals the ability to adapt and change within their kind.

The Little Cats

There were some truly giant cats that are now extinct. But what cat is the smallest? Today, the rusty-spotted cat is the smallest wild cat in the world. At only 2–4 pounds, this cat is teensy! It lives in India and Sri Lanka. This mini-sized hunter is playful. It likes to live in areas with lots of plants or rocks.

Do you have a question about God’s Word or his world that you want us to answer? Is there a topic you want to learn more about? Ask your parents to help you submit your question today. Watch for our answer here on the blog or in Kids Answers magazine. We’d love to hear from you!