West Brown, age 9, of Lowell, mass., for his question:

DOES THE OCELOT LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES?

An ocelot is a medium size animal of the cat family that is sometimes called the leopard cat or the tiger cat. In the United States, you'll find the ocelot living wild in southeastern Arizona, New Mexico and in southern Texas.

You'll also find ocelots living in Mexico and all the way south to Paraguay. An ocelot is from three and a half to four feet long and it stands from 16 to 18 inches high at the shoulder. It spends most of its life on the ground, but often hunts in forest trees and is an agile climber.

An ocelot will eat mice, wood rats, rabbits, snakes, lizards, birds, young deer and monkeys. It the tropics, its favorite food is agoutis, a rabbit like rodent.