This Petite Cat Is the World's Deadliest. Mini-Series 'Super Cats' Shows You Why by Smithsonian The African black-footed cat weighs roughly 200 times less than the average lion, but it has a predation success rate of 60 percent Standing just 8 to 10 inches tall, the African black-footed cat resembles a petite version of your average neighborhood tabby. But though the speckled feline is unequivocally adorable, a vicious, adept killer lies beneath its charming exterior. Felis nigripes, as the black-footed feline is formally named, is, in fact, Africa’s smallest cat. To give you some perspective on that statistic, the black-footed cat, which averages 2.4 t0 4.2 pounds, weighs roughly 200 times less than your typical lion. Still, don’t be fooled by its demure stature—the species is also the deadliest of all the world’s felines, capturing more prey in a single night than a leopard does in six months. As Live Science's Mindy Weisberger reports, the cat's sk...