Records of Rusty-Spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in Mount Abu Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India

Abstract

The Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus is the smallest cat in the world and restricted to the Indian subcontinent. Although it has been recorded across India, its ecology is poorly understood. In the northwestern state of Rajasthan, it has been recorded in the dry deciduous forest landscapes of Udaipur, Sariska, and Ranthambore. We report camera trap records of the Rusty-Spotted Cat in semi evergreen and dry deciduous forests in Mount Abu Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan. In the current study from September 2017 to April 2018, out of 1,800 camera trapping nights the species was recorded on ten occasions, at four different locations in Mount Abu Wildlife Sanctuary.

Photographic record of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in southern Western Ghats, India

“…Since the Rusty-spotted Cat was recorded only once during the entire study period, we assume that it is rare in our study area. Our record of the Rusty-spotted Cat is consistent with its habitat use documented in eastern Gujarat (Patel 2006) (Basak et al 2018), Anaikatty Reserve Forest in Tamil Nadu (Mukherjee & Koparde 2014), and in the Aravalli Hills in Rajasthan (Sharma & Dhakad 2020;Singh & Kariyappa 2020). Elsewhere in India, it was also recorded in dry thorn forest, scrub forest, moist deciduous forest, semi-evergreen hill forest and sugarcane fields (Anwar et al 2012;Kalle et al 2013;Aditya & Ganesh 2016;Ghaskadbi et al 2016;Bora et al 2020;Chatterjee et al 2020;Deshmukh et al 2020;Sharma & Dhakad 2020;Silva et al 2020).…”