The polecat is a member of the weasel family, and in the United States the name polecat is also used for the skunk. The tiger cat of Australia is a marsupial, and its proper name is dasyure. Although the members of the cat family are reasonably easy to identify by outward appearance, they share much more than this apparent likeness. Most seem to like warm climates, but some live in the Far North and others in the severe cold of Central Asia. Wherever they are found, however, they have basic characteristics in common that mark them as cats.
All cats move in the same way.
They walk on the tips of their toes, not on the soles of their feet as do humans and many other kinds of animals. At a medium speed they trot, much as a horse does. But when they are trying to hunt down prey or escape a human hunter, they really want speed, and so they move in great, bounding leaps that cover ground rapidly. The cheetah is the fastest of all land mammals and has been clocked at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. But all cats, even the domestic cat, are capable of very rapid acceleration from a standing start.