Marbled cat
Marble cat ( Pardofelis marmorata )
The marble cat ( Pardofelis marmorata ) is a small cat that grows in the tropical regions of South and Southeast Asia. Since 2002 she is led to the early warning of the IUCN, as the entire population probably consists of fewer than 10,000 adult individuals, and no population comprises more than 1,000 adult marbled cats.
Their coat pattern resembles strikingly that of the much larger clouded leopard.
Features
Marbled cats are a little larger than domestic cats: the head -body length is about 45 to 62 cm, added a 36-55 centimeters long, bushy tail. Body weight is about 2 to 5 kg.
The coat pattern of the marble cat resembles that of the much larger clouded leopard: On gray-brown to yellow- gray base bears the coat large, black, irregularly shaped spots, the interior of which is paler than the edges. Therefore, there is a possibility of confusion with immature clouded leopards.
Structural, reminds the marble cat to the spread in the same area Bengal, although it is not related directly to her. From the Bengal cat, the cat marble distinctions made by the shorter and broader skull. The cats typical "hump" makes the marble cat very frequently, so that it is sometimes seen for a long time in any other attitude.
Distribution and habitat
Marbled cats are widespread on the mainland of Southeast Asia, the Malay peninsula extending into the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas and on Sumatra and Borneo. They live mainly in evergreen tropical rainforests.
Way of life
Little is known about the way of life. As apparently nocturnal loner marble cat chasing probably by squirrels, frogs, birds and insects. In marbled cats that have been observed in Nepal, were part of the spectrum of prey hare, collared doves, rock pigeons, quail Francolin, Blue peacocks, Kalifasane, Bankivahühner and rats. A large part of the booty was beaten on trees, but the marble cat also lurks on branches on ground-dwelling prey.
Unlike the predominantly ground-dwelling Bengal, the marble cat seems mostly to move in the branches of trees - as Bengal and marbled cats would make another little competition. For reproduction only data are from captivity. Known litter sizes were ever two pups. The gestation period is expected to amount to about 66-82 days.
Taxonomy
The British naturalist William Charles Linnaeus Martin ordered the marble cat in his first description of 1837 of the genus Felis. The Russian scientist Nikolai Alexeyevich Severtsov suggested in 1858 the right to assign the marble cat of the genus Pardofelis. The British zoologist John Edward Gray in 1867, it placed the genus Catolynx to.
The British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock recognized in 1917 at the genus and described Pardofelis 1939 Pardofelis marmorata on the basis of skulls and skins which came from Java, Sumatra, Darjeeling and Sikkim. He ordered Felis marmorata and the Felis charltoni described in 1846 by Gray as subspecies of a Pardofelis marmorata. The nominal subspecies marmorata marmorata Pardofelis comes in eastern Himalayas, Assam, Burma, on the Malay Peninsula, on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, and in Annam before. Pardofelis marmorata charltoni lives in Nepal, Sikkim, Assam and northern Myanmar.
After new DNA analysis, the marble cat is closely related to the Borneo Cat gold and the Asian golden cat.
Modern DNA analysis came to the conclusion that the marble cat is possibly related much closer to the big cats ( lion, tiger, etc.), maybe even close is the link between small and large cats. Recently there is also evidence that the marble cat might be related to the lynxes.
Conservation
Pardofelis marmorata is listed in Appendix I of the CITES Convention. The hunt for marbled cats is illegal in Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Chinese Yunnan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand.