Felis chaus chaus
Felis chaus chaus is the nominate subspecies of the jungle cat. The Baltic-German naturalist Johann Anton Güldenstädt was the first scientist who observed a jungle cat in the southern frontier of the Russian empire during his travels in 1768–1775 undertaken on behalf of Catherine II of Russia. He described the cat in 1776 under the name "chaus". Taxonomic history. In 1778, the German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber used "chaus" as the species name and is therefore considered the binomial authority. In the 19th and 20th centuries, several specimen were described and proposed as subspecies : Since 2017, all four are considered synonyms of "F. c. chaus". The German zoologist Paul Matschie in 1912 and the American zoologist Joel Asaph Allen in 1920 challenged the validity of Güldenstädt's nomenclature, arguing that the name "Felis auriculis apice nigro barbatis" was not a binomen and therefore improper, and that "chaus" was used as a common name rather than as part of the scientific name. Distribution. This subspecies occurs in the Caucasus, Turkestan, Iran, Baluchistan and Yarkand, Chinese Turkestan, Palestine, southern Syria, Iraq, Egypt; northern Afghanistan and south of the Amu Darya River; along the right tributaries of  the Amu Darya River, in the lower courses of the Vakhsh River ranging eastwards to the Gissar Valley and slightly beyond Dushanbe. Jungle cats have also been recorded in central and southern Turkey.