It seems I am quite lucky when it comes to rare black cats.

Last week I was at Namiri Plains in the Serengeti. I was aware that over the last couple of years, a  melanistic serval cat had been seen quite regularly near to camp. When I arrived, however, I was disappointed to learn that it had not been seen for a couple of months. But, I had not come to the Serengeti looking for black cats; my aim was to photograph lions for my next book project and so I resolved to focus all my attention on that instead. The lions of Namiri did not disappoint and thoughts of mini black panthers soon left my mind.

Fast forward to my penultimate evening and I was photographing a spectacular male lion at sunset. My guide, Keko, happened to turn around as he was reversing the vehicle and suddenly exclaimed that he thought he had just seen a small dark cat disappearing into a thicket amongst a jumble of boulders.

We agreed it was worth briefly leaving the handsome male lion in beautiful sunset light to go check it out. As we approached the thicket, we spotted a regular spotty serval dart across a clearing. Perhaps it had just been trick of the light that had made it look dark?

We circled the outcrop a few times and just as we were about to give up, we spotted two pairs of ears poking above the grass. One set was golden, the other black! Although all we could see were ears, it was clearly a melanistic serval.

The next day we returned to the outcrop at dawn and dusk. On a couple of occasions we caught tantalizing glimpses of fur through the dense grass. It became apparent that there was an adult spotty serval (the mother) and a pair of kittens, one of which was melanistic.

Then, just before we headed back to camp for my last night, a little black furball leapt out of the grass and sat atop a rock for just long enough to allow me to capture a clear shot. I couldn’t believe my luck! It was a perfect end to our stay at Namiri Plains.

The next morning we were up early to transfer to a new camp. We decided to quickly checkout the rocks just in case we got lucky again. As we approached, to our amazement, the serval kittens were out in the open, playing!

We sat quietly and the cats relaxed completely. Soon the mother emerged and I captured a series of images that I scarcely imagined possible when we had first glimpsed that timid pair of ears two evenings before. Click on the picture below to cycle through a small slideshow…

Just like the black leopard I photographed, melanism in servals is caused by a recessive gene that overrides the usual golden coat with black spot pattern when it is inherited from both parents.

Many thanks to my guide, Keko, and the entire team at Asilia Namiri Plains.