The Flat-Headed Cat (Felis planiceps) is a rare, elusive and little known fishing cat about the size of a domestic cat. It has a heavy coat of long, soft hairs and a very short, heavily furred tail. The colour of its ticked coat is described as "dark brown with a silvery tinge". Its claws are only semi-retractile. It lives in low country, favouring riverbanks in forests. A nocturnal hunter, this feline is said to prey mainly on fish, frogs and crustaceans. Captive specimens have been seen to 'wash' food like raccoons. They were so aquatic that they would take a piece of fish with their heads submerged well below the surface. They ignored live sparrows even though these were easy to catch.

Flat-Headed Cat

Marbled Cat

The Marbled cat (Felis marmorata) is known in Malaya as the Kuching Dahan. Little larger than a domestic cat, it has been described superficially as a "smaller edition of the Clouded Leopard". A little known, arboreal forest-dweller from Asia, the Marbled Cat has rarely been observed in the wild. Its diet consists of squirrels, small primates, rats, lizards, frogs and, above all, birds. It has on one occasion been seen hunting by creeping along a branch.

The Iriomate Cat (Felis bengalensis iriomotensis) also known to the local people as the Pingimaya. When first discovered on the small island of Iriomote near Taiwan, this small, spotted cat was thought to represent an entirely new species, but is now generally considered to be merely a local race of the Leopard Cat. When it was first encountered, as recently as 1967, by the Japanese zoologist Yoshinori Imaizumi, it caused great excitement. The idea that a new species of feline could be discovered in the second half of the 20th century seemed amazing.

Iriomote Cat

This over-enthusiastic reaction to its discovery has not been sustained, but it is certainly a most interesting sub-species of Leopard Cat and one that deserves protection for further study. Unfortunately, it is a popular food item among the local people, and agricultural development is also robbing it of its sub-tropical rain-forest strongholds. It is now estimated that there are only between 40 and 80 individuals left. These dramatically low numbers must make it one of the rarest forms of wild feline in existence.

The multiple rodents which populate the desolate extents of Asia are choice prey for the carnivores able to support extreme summers as well as cold winters. A large variety of cats, everyone with clear and mimetic colours, live in these areas, often close to the water points. Felidae are practically the same as those who live in the African deserts: such is the case of the Caracal, of the Wildcat called Felis sylvestris, of the Sand Cat (Felis margarita) opposite, and of the Jungle Cat (Felis chaus), also present in Egypt. The Pallas's Cat (Felis manul) is on the contrary exclusively Asian. This is a southern Russian cat which extends its range down into Afghanistan and Iran, and across to Tibet, Mongolia and W.China.

Sand Cat

Sand Cat

The Sand Cat is also known as the Sand-dune Cat or Dune Cat. The scientific title of margarita was taken from the name of a French officer, Général Margueritte, who was serving in Algeria in the 1850s. A strictly nocturnal, ground living hunter, the Sand Cat preys on any small desert rodents, reptiles, or large insects that it can find in its hostile environment, relying to a great extent on its incredibly sensitive hearing.


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