Pardofelis

Drawing a marble cat ( Pardofelis marmorata ).

Pardofelis is a genus of medium-sized cat of Southeast Asia, which includes three types: the marble cat ( Pardofelis marmorata ), the Borneo Cat gold ( Pardofelis badia ) and the Asian golden cat ( Pardofelis temminckii ). Today's definition of the genus is due to molecular biological studies.

Features

When the British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock recognized the taxonomic classification of Pardofelis in 1917, he ordered the genus next to the marble cat and the Borneo Cat gold, because their skulls have similar features. He described the marble cat as the type species of this genus, which differs from the genus Prionailurus by a short, broad skull, which is pronounced in the back profile convex; the nose area is narrow and the tip of the snout not compressed above; the upper jaw is where it is adjacent to the nasal bone, not extended, and developed outside the suborbital foramen no outgrowth.

Since the present scope of the genus dates back to molecular studies, is currently currently no classical description of phenotypic characteristics genus. The three species of the genus are medium sized cats, with the Asiatic Golden Cat and the smaller Borneo Cat gold resemble by their red-gold coat color and face markings, while the marble cat color of the fur the clouded leopard ( Neofelis nebulosa ) is similar.

Dissemination

The Asiatic golden cat and the marble cat come back in India, in the eastern Himalayas and Sumatra before, the Asian golden cat also in southern China. In Borneo the marble cat and the Borneo gold cat occur.

Way of life

All three species inhabit forests and is thought to feed mainly on small mammals, the Asian golden cat as the biggest kind of small ungulates. Overall, about their way of life but little is known.

Systematic history

The genus Pardofelis proposed in 1858 by the Russian scientist Nikolai Alexeyevich Severtsov for classifying marble cat that William Charles Linnaeus Martin had described in 1837 as Felis marmorata from the rainforests of Southeast Asia.

The British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock recognized in 1917 to the taxonomic classification of the genus Pardofelis and ordered the Borneo Cat gold as Pardofelis badia, since he held the two types of related. In 1939 he described the genus Pardofelis on the basis of skulls and skins which came from Java, Sumatra, Darjeeling and Sikkim and assumed that Pardofelis marmorata in the east of the Himalayas and in Assam, Burma, on the Malay Peninsula and in Annam occurs.

By 2006, the taxonomic classification of Pardofelis was widely recognized as a monotypic genus.

Genetic analyzes were performed at the beginning of the 21st century, revealed a close relationship with the Borneo Cat gold ( Pardofelis badia ) and the Asian golden cat ( Pardofelis temminckii ). All three species evolved from the other cats apart before about 9.4 million years ago. From their results, the researchers recommended that they be assigned to the genus Pardofelis. This is within the small cats the sister group to all other genera. This recommendation has now been accepted by the members of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group.