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The enigmatic Chinese mountain cat, endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has a controversial taxonomic status, whether a true species or conspecific with the wildcat (Felis silvestris) and whether it may have contributed to the domestication of cats (F. s. catus) in Asia. Here, we sampled 270 domestic and wild cats across China, sequenced 51 nuclear genomes, 55 mitogenomes, and multi-locus regions from modern and museum specimens. Genome-wide phylogenies supported taxonomic classification of the Chinese mountain cat as wildcat subspecies, F. s. bieti. No involvement of F. s. bieti in cat domestication in East Asia was detected, confirming that domestic cats shared a single origin from the African wildcat (F. s. lybica). A complex hybridization scenario including ancient introgression from the Asiatic wildcat (F. s. ornata) to F. s. bieti, and contemporary gene flow between F. s. bieti and sympatric domestic cats in the Tibetan region, raises the prospect of disrupting the genetic integrity of F. s. bieti, an issue with profound conservation implications.

Abstract Regurgitated pellets (n = 584) of Long-eared Owl (Asio otus) were collected for three seasons from Gansu Endangered Animal Research Center, Gansu Province, China. From these pellets, a total of 1011 individual prey items – representing seven species of rodents and two undetermined species of birds and one undetermined sorex-species – were identified. Long-eared Owls depend mainly on small mammals both based on prey numbers (95.5%) and prey biomass (97.0%). The composition of the diet of Long-eared Owls varied significantly among seasons by frequency and by biomass. The individual species groups indicated significant variation among seasons for Mus musculus, Meriones meridianus, Cricetulus barabensis, Phodopus roborovskii, Dipus sagitta and Rattus norvegicus by biomass. And the difference of seasonal variation of prey items were significant but not for Mus musculus by frequency. Based on prey numbers, Mus musculus was the main food item (50.5%) in its diet; this species was most common in autumn (56.9%) and least common during spring (36.7%). Main prey species, based on prey biomass, was Rattus norvrgicus which comprised 27.5% of total biomass from our pellet samples. The mean length of tibias of mammals in pellets of Long-eared Owls was 18.6 ± 5.4 mm. Long-eared Owls utilize a wide range of prey items in respect to their habitats. Results suggest that Long-eared Owls are selective predators at some levels.