Diet and habitat selection of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis borneoensis) in an agricultural landscape in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo

Abstract

Ten leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis borneoensis) were captured and radio tracked in an agricultural landscape in Sabah, Malaysia. Seventy-two leopard cat scats were analysed for diet while information on prey distribution and abundance was obtained from a concurrent study on small mammals. Mammals, namely murids, were the major prey with Whitehead's rat (Maxomys whiteheadi) being the principal prey species. Leopard cats significantly preferred the relatively open oil palm habitat over both selectively logged dipterocarp forest and secondary forest fragments. Although relative murid abundance was highest in selectively logged dipterocarp forest, oil palm harboured a higher relative abundance of Maxomys whiteheadi. Visibility and ease of movement for leopard cats was also better in oil palm, thereby possibly increasing their hunting success. We suggest that the significantly higher use of oil palm by leopard cats is related to their preference for areas with high prey ‘catchability’ rather than high prey density. Although secondary-forest fragments were least selected, they were important to leopard cats for resting and possibly breeding, highlighting the importance of forest fragments for the conservation of Bornean leopard cats in agricultural landscapes.

Diet and habitat use of the endangered Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) in northeastern Iran

“…Scat analysis is a common technique in determining diets of terrestrial carnivores (Rajaratnam et al, 2007;Ramesh et al, 2009;Bianchi et al, 2011;Klare et al, 2011). We collected 52 Persian leopard scats between 2009 and 2010.…”

“…The hair content was compared with an identification key of hairs from different body parts of sympatric mammals, including the 8 carnivore species found in the area, ungulates (wild sheep, wild goat, wild pig), hedgehog, hare, pika, some rodent species (porcupine, jird, southern molevole), and domestic animals (sheep, goat, horse, donkey, and dog). Comparisons were made based on macroscopic characteristics such as length, coloration, and thickness (Henschel et al, 2005) and microscopic characteristics such as medulla patterns (Konency, 1989;Rajaratnam et al, 2007). Frequency of occurrence (percent of scats in which a particular prey item is found) and relative frequency of occurrence (number of occurrences of a species / total number of occurrences of all species) were determined.…”

Establishing the evidence base for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function in the oil palm landscapes of South East Asia

“…Assessments of the biodiversity value of forest fragments are rarer, but show that populations become more genetically isolated [27], and become very similar in terms of species composition to those found in oil palm [4]. The abundant oil palm/ forest boundaries that have arisen during this shift in landscape use [45] may provide benefits to some species, such as leopard cats, owing to increased numbers of prey in the plantations [46], although it is unclear how the majority of taxa respond. We urgently need further data on the importance of forest fragments, total abundance 1000 10 000 Figure 1.…”

Ecological Flexibility of the Top Predator in an Island Ecosystem — The Iriomote Cat Changes Feeding Patterns in Relation to Prey Availability

“…This is likely the result of different climates, vegetation structures, or the principal prey species present in completely different environments. For leopard cats Prionailurus bengalensis, home range sizes differ among broad regions in Thailand [49][50][51], in Borneo [52], on Tsushima Island [53] and on Iriomote [5,47,54]. On Iriomote, the vegetative and topographic conditions significantly differed among the study sites, which were only several kilometres away from one another.…”