Small

Mustelids, Viverrids and Herpestids of India: Species Profile and Conservation Status

- S.A. Hussain

Small-toothed palm civet Arctogalidia trivirgata Gray, 1832

Distribution

It is distributed in northeast India possibly from West Bengal (Sclater 1891), Assam and Arunachal Pradesh (Choudhury 1997 a,b) through Myanmar, south China, Thailand Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore (Pocock 1939, Medway 1978, Corbet & Hill 1992).

Description

The small-toothed palm civet closely resembles common palm civet in external form and in the length of the legs and tail. The general colour of the nape, back, proximal portion of the tail and the outside of the legs is tawny, but varies individually from dusky grey-tawny to bright ochre-buff. The head is usually

darker and greyer. The muzzle is brownish with median white streak on the muzzle and front of the forehead. The back is always marked with three distinct black or dark brown longitudinal stripes in the midline. The flanks are unmarked. The juveniles are uniformly brown. The head and body length is 480 to 575 mm, tail is 560 to 600 mm and the weight varies from 2.0 to 2.7 kg (Roberts 1977).

The Indian subspecies is A. trivirgata millsi Wroughton, 1921 (Pocock 1939).

Behaviour

Like most of the palm civets it is solitary, however, occasionally it is seen in a small group of females with young ones. Primarily arboreal and nocturnal, by day time it can be found resting on the upper branches of tall trees. It is omnivorous in habit, feeding on insects, small mammals, birds and mostly fruits. The stomach of two of the animals contained beetles, frogs and a lizard. Litter size is usually three. In captivity it attains maturity in 17 months. The gestation period is 45 days. The longest recorded life span is around 11 years (Jones 1968).

Conservation status

It is listed in the Schedule II part II of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and in Appendix III of CITES. It was not evaluated during the CAMP Workshop.