Serval similar to the sympatric caracal, but has a narrower spoor, a rounder skull, and lacks its prominent ear tufts. The African golden cat is darker, with different cranial features. It resembles the cheetah in its build and coat pattern, though not in size. The serval shares its adaptations to its marshy habitat with the jungle cat; both cats have large and sharp ears that help in locating the prey efficiently, and their long legs raise them above muddy ground and water. In North Africa, the serval is known only from Morocco and has been reintroduced in Tunisia, but is feared
Serval that no such specimen had been identified by him or his colleagues, and that it differed considerably from the common serval. In 1944, Pocock identified three races of the serval from northern Africa. Three subspecies are recognised as valid since 2017: The phylogenetic relationships of the serval have remained in dispute; in 1997, palaeontologists M. C. McKenna and S. K. Bell classified "Leptailurus" as a subgenus of "Felis", while others like O. R. P. Bininda-Edmonds (of the Technical University of Munich) have grouped it with "Felis", "Lynx" and "Caracal". Studies in the 2000s and the 2010s show that the serval,