Serval Distribution

Servals only occur in Africa, where they have a wide distribution, inhabiting the wetter areas throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

They are absent from the central tropical rainforests and the deserts in the north and south west.

 

Serval Subspecies

Historically there have been up to 18 subspecies of serval, however the latest taxonomic revision proposes only three subspecies, although further research is required:

Leptailurus serval serval - Southern Africa

Leptailurus serval constantina - West and Central Africa

Leptailurus serval lipostictus - East Africa

Reference: Kitchener et al. 2017. A revised taxonomy of the Felidae. The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group.

 

Servals occur in 40 African countries across all five regions, but only marginally in North Africa.

List of African countries where Servals occur:

North Africa: Sudan, Morocco

West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo

Central Africa: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Gabon

East Africa: Burundi; Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Southern Africa: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland

 

Extinct: Southern part of South Africa (Southern Africa)

Possibly extinct: Algeria (North Africa)

Reintroduced: Tunisia (North Africa) and southern part of South Africa (Southern Africa)

 

Reference: Thiel, C. 2015. Leptailurus serval. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T11638A50654625. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-2.RLTS.T11638A50654625.en. Downloaded on 14 June 2017.

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