Cat Track ?

[Aussie123]

I found these tracks beside a river. I believe these belong to a domestic cat ?
That bright round disc is a 5c coin for scale

 

[Hairyman]

99.99% sure... domestic/feral cat, claws are retracted. Were there any more? He has stood still and/or did a small bound to
clear the wet mud.

 

[Aussie123]

Thanks for confirming that.

There were a few more tracks in very soft mud, just on the edge of the water, it was much more firm just a few cm behind him.



It seems to me that the cat was tracking this creature/s
There were no signs of a fight or struggle, so I guess the creature got away ?

What I really want to know is what are these tracks ?

This was just beside the (above) cat tracks, there are two sets of tracks (other than the cat):


This was about 1m away from the cat tracks, but I suspect it was the same as one of the creatures above

 

[Hairyman]

One would be a walking bird (as opposed to a hopping bird) Peewee perhaps or small plover type bird?
The handtype prints could be a rat or maybe even a frog as they sometimes do a shuffling type walk.
Im guessing 'handprints' was either uncomfortable with the wet mud or they were drunk.
All the tracks look only hours old but the animals may not have seen one another.

 

[AussiePreppers]

Too many toes for a bandicoot and unusual shape for an antechinus... due to the size and separation distance i'd say it wasn't a frog - I think they'd be further apart width wise on each pair.

 

[Templar]

I'd say possum tracks myself, looking at the spread of the larger rear foot toes and the hand like front foot...

 

[Corin]

I am going with Baby Puma/panther, or possibly a juvenile thylacine....

 

[Blake]

My vote also goes for cat track for this one. Almost text book. Definitely not a dog. Aside from the claws. Another thing to look at is the overall shape of the print. Dog tracks tend to have more vertical height and spread between the pads which gives the print and overall tear drop-like shape where as cats tend to be more rounded. The placement of the dog pads lends itself to producing a cross shaped mound in-between the pads where as a cat no so much.

The comparison in the illustration below helps explain what im talking about a bit better:

As for the other tracks. I like Templars guess. Possium isn't a bad one. Those prints near the leaf look alot like the front foot of a possum.

 

[Hairyman]

Given the location next to a river the water rat would have to be a suspect too.(for the bottom pic post#3).

 

[AussiePreppers]

The thing that makes me not think rat etc is the two outer toes seem to be pointing away from the middle toes, although that could be slipping in the mud, Hairy? I don't have much experience hunting smaller game so it's an interesting conversation...

 

[Templar]

Yes the Spoor in the first pic is a cat... the negative space makes a "C" rather than an "X" or "H"which tells me it is a cat.

A Cat is the easiest to remember as the neg space = a "C" shape.
A Dog has an "X" shaped Neg Space.
A Fox has an "H", sometimes called a modified "X" by some instructors, shaped Neg Space.

 

[Hairyman]

I would much rather be there looking at the tracks than looking at photos.
Context is so important, was the mud from a rise in the river? When did it rain?
What time of day were the pics taken? What animals and birds are known to be in the area?
It's a bit like looking at the world through a drinking straw! Gets you thinking though!

 

[auscraft]

I would much rather be there looking at the tracks than looking at photos.
Context is so important, was the mud from a rise in the river? When did it rain?
What time of day were the pics taken? What animals and birds are known to be in the area?
It's a bit like looking at the world through a drinking straw! Gets you thinking though!

I agree here the pic is a bit hard to pick the details up and age but from what I can see clearly is front foot showing 4 toes so from this pic alone without close ups and going from coin in place I too will say water rat

 

[Aussie123]

I would much rather be there looking at the tracks than looking at photos.
Context is so important, was the mud from a rise in the river? When did it rain?
What time of day were the pics taken? What animals and birds are known to be in the area?
It's a bit like looking at the world through a drinking straw! Gets you thinking though!

The mud was just a cm above the "current" river level, so it was probably covered during the last rain
It last rained about 48 hours earlier
The pics were taken mid-morning
The area is the central Vic mountain region. North of the Kinglake area.

There are a lot of "critters" in this area, including water rats. A few meters away there a "hole" going through a thicket of grass with earth underneath, which made me think that there must have been a burrow in there.
The hole was oval shaped (oriented "tall-ways") and about 15cm high. There were no discernable prints there, but the ground looked like it had been scampered over.

Water rat and antechinus were the two critters I was thinking about ?