Unceremoniously named for its distinctively formed cranium, the flat-headed cat is up for consideration as one of many world’s most endangered and elusive felines. Weighing in at lower than the scale of a home cat, this diminutive species roams semiaquatic and wetland habitat in Sumatra, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula and southern Thailand.
To navigate their muddy moist habitat, these cats are geared up with claws that don’t totally retract; partially webbed paws; vast, close-set eyes suited to a nocturnal way of life; and brief, stubby tails. On their menu is a big selection of fish, amphibians, rodents and crustaceans.
Like many felids, flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps) are susceptible to extinction and are categorized as endangered on the IUCN Crimson Record, as swaths of their habitat are misplaced to agricultural crops together with oil palm. A 2015 research assessed the flat-headed cat as a feline of highest conservation precedence, alongside the tiger (Panthera tigris), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), leopard (Panthera pardus) and puma (Puma concolor). An earlier research indicated that solely round 10-20% of the species’ appropriate habitat falls inside protected areas, whereas as a lot as 70% of its habitat has probably turn out to be unsuitable.
Compounding these threats is the truth that, like with so many different wild felids, the flat-headed cat is devilishly troublesome to check, leading to giant data gaps about its primary ecology, inhabitants numbers and exact distribution. As just lately as 2019, solely round 40 digital camera lure data existed, and it’s not even clear if the species nonetheless persists in southern Thailand, the northernmost extent of its vary.
“It’s arguably one of many world’s rarest felids,” says Wai-Ming Wong, director of small cat conservation science on the wildcat NGO Panthera. “Loads of its habitat is sadly getting destroyed and actually not a lot is understood about it.”
Digital camera-shy specialists
The acute problem of finding out P. planiceps is, not less than partially, resulting from its explicit evolutionary traits. Alongside Asia’s fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), the flat-headed cat is uniquely tailored to thrive in humid, semiaquatic tropical environments equivalent to mangrove forests, lowland forests liable to flooding, peat swamps, and alongside impenetrably vegetated waterways — habitats all good for concealing this small felid, however not so conducive for researchers and their digital camera traps.
“If you work in a mangrove [swamp], I can inform you, it’s no joke,” says Carl Traeholt with Copenhagen Zoo, who has studied the flat-headed cat. There, scientists endure intense warmth and humidity, together with biting bugs, whereas navigating a tangled maze of arching stilt-like mangrove roots rising amid brackish water and treacherous mud. “It’s actually troublesome terrain to work in and only a few folks really do this,” he says.
Consequently, this wetland-specialized species is without doubt one of the least-known small cats globally, with a paucity of data throughout its vary. Digital camera-trap research meant for extra charismatic species could by the way choose up a flat-headed cat or two in passing, however typically the animals aren’t detected once more at that spot. A research printed in 2017 notes that digital camera traps throughout Borneo, Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia that noticed for greater than 100,000 nights yielded solely 46 flat-headed cat detections — proving the widespread researcher chorus that the species is notoriously digital camera shy.
But some consultants say the cat will not be as uncommon as presumed. Fairly, the dearth of detections could also be as a result of mixed problem of working in its habitat and an absence of research tailor-made to focus on the species in its favourite environs. “After we use digital camera traps for months, we regularly don’t choose up the species, however throughout a cruise on a ship you’ll be able to spot it,” says Mohd Azlan Jayasilan, with the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation on the College of Malaysia Sarawak, on the island of Borneo.
Such an incident has occurred twice to Mohd Azlan and his crew: as soon as after they noticed a flat-headed cat resting on mangroves beside the Sarawak River, and as soon as in Maludam Nationwide Park in Sarawak. “Due to the rarity by way of data, I get excited each time I get a report of them in my digital camera traps,” he provides.
However this hard-to-study flat-headed cat habitat is quick disappearing, with a few of Asia’s most endangered forest areas, together with lowland tropical forest and peat swamp forest.
Whereas habitat loss resulting from speedy agricultural encroachment is a major risk, consultants be aware different dangers, equivalent to searching, seize as bycatch, air pollution of waterways, highway kills, and probably the unfold of illness from home animals. Some consultants rank the endangered flat-headed cat’s excessive threat stage alongside the elusive, and likewise endangered, Borneo bay cat (Catopuma badia).
Capturing a cat
In 2021, a uncommon feat occurred: researchers in Malaysia caught and radio-collared a feminine flat-headed cat. For almost two months it despatched again information on the place it spent its days and nights.
“It was a really thrilling, cool expertise,” recollects Amanda Wilson, a Ph.D. scholar and analysis officer with the Danau Girang Area Centre, who was a part of the crew that tagged and tracked that cat. Information from this single particular person confirmed that this small cat has a fittingly small-sized vary.
In comparison with the bigger leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), for instance, the flat-headed cat’s vary seems to be way more restricted, says Wilson, who’s finding out each species for her Ph.D. Leopard cats can wander as much as 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) inside their house vary and readily make use of oil palm plantations to hunt rodents and different prey. “However with the flat-headed cat, their vary is far smaller; they solely go as much as 2 kilometers [1.2 mi],” Wilson says.
The radio-collared cat’s “core space,” the place it spent most of its day, was much more constricted, masking simply 500 sq. meters (about 5,400 sq. ft), Wilson provides. Primarily based on this information, an image — although a fuzzy, restricted one — started to kind. The tagged feminine didn’t keep solely in its wild riparian habitat, however appeared to have some adaptation to searching in disturbed areas in forest that bordered an oil palm plantation, Wilson says.
However restricted conclusions may be drawn from this one collared cat, and for Wilson that singular expertise underscores the necessity for better efforts to know the species to guard it: “Each bit of knowledge that we gather is, for me, priceless.”
Panthera’s Wong notes that the data retrieved from the collared cat might have essential conservation implications. He means that, if a extremely endangered species just like the flat-headed cat finds robust conservation worth inside forest adjoining to grease palm plantations, then that might strengthen the case to protect such areas, he says. However additional information will probably be wanted to construct such a case.
On that entrance, Traeholt and his crew are gearing as much as seize and monitor flat-headed cats later this yr. They’ve radio collars in hand and are figuring out appropriate websites; all they want now are the cats.
“I feel we’ve a real likelihood of with the ability to seize a few of them,” he says.
Past digital camera trapping
Digital camera traps have been the go-to methodology for finding out P. planiceps. However this comes with quite a few pitfalls. A big, focused survey for flat-headed cats in Malaysia’s Deramakot panorama got here up with only one report — a really worrying incidence, in response to Wong, because the area is taken into account a possible stronghold for the species.
Nonetheless, shrinking the distances between cameras elevated the numbers of sightings, including weight to the concept it requires a selected technique to even catch a glimpse of this cat.
“We actually want to know how they transfer via the forest and the way they use their habitats for us to get important inhabitants data,” Wong says. “Because it stands, it’s very troublesome for us to do any significant evaluation as a result of we simply have so few detections.”
Given these challenges, further instruments equivalent to environmental DNA might show helpful. Consultants say eDNA could possibly be a “game-changer” for monitoring mammal species writ giant, with that pondering already supported by research of different felids equivalent to Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and jaguar (Panthera onca).
“By placing digital camera traps on the market, we’re simply type of hoping {that a} flat-headed cat will cross [our] path,” says Wong. “Whereas if we are able to use genetic strategies, we may be actively on the market, taking swabs. That may be a technique that we might probably overlay with digital camera traps to assist us enhance detections.”
However eDNA just isn’t with out its personal challenges, as sampling may solely give a sign {that a} cat is within the neighborhood, and never any data on densities, says Traeholt. “It may be very related with digital camera trapping, in a approach, as absence of report doesn’t imply that they’re not there.” Nonetheless, he says this new instrument has numerous potential.
It might present “one other methodology to assist us … detect a really uncommon species that’s exhausting to detect in troublesome environments,” Wong says.
Saving the thriller cat
Researching the flat-headed cat definitely presents massive challenges, however so too does growing efficient conservation motion plans for such a cryptic species.
“We wish to tackle threats, we by no means wish to … neglect about these,” Wong says, however first, researchers should acquire a deeper understanding of the place precisely the cats reside. Panthera plans to conduct a range-wide survey of the flat-headed cat, together with a pilot survey in southern Thailand to find out its presence there.
Different organizations, such because the Save Wild Cats Basis, are funding conservation and making an attempt to launch captive-breeding packages in partnership with zoos in vary nations. To this point, such efforts have confirmed futile. Songkla Zoo in Thailand is one such middle; it plans to trial synthetic insemination of captive flat-headed cats later this yr.
“The flat-headed cat is about to turn out to be extinct if we don’t assist protect it,” says Surasak Yimprasert, head of the conservation, analysis and animal well being division at Songkhla Zoo. He says worldwide collaboration is urgently wanted to help breeding efforts and different motion, equivalent to consciousness elevating on the neighborhood stage.
“If you would like conservation within the wild to be efficient, we should educate people who find themselves near the forest and forestall encroachment on … the habitat of the flat-headed cat,” says Yimprasert.
A barrier, nonetheless, is proscribed curiosity within the species, say consultants. Small cats generally face an absence of conservation consciousness, one thing that some researchers say is altering, as funding and data of small felids will increase little by little. As details about these cats grows, so too does understanding of their pivotal function in ecosystems and the bigger internet of life.
However in comparison with their massive cat cousins, the small wild cats of the world nonetheless face giant hurdles to their survival, towards a backdrop of meager funding and restricted analysis; the flat-headed cat isn’t any exception.
Jim Sanderson, founder and director of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Basis, emphasizes the necessity to scale back threats by making preservation of the flat-headed cat’s habitat a high precedence. Traeholt suggests making use of a precautionary strategy, appearing now to guard areas the place a number of data of the endangered cat exist.
Many questions stay concerning the flat-headed cat, however for consultants not less than one factor is definite: this felid is in pressing want of conservation earlier than it slips quietly into oblivion. “We don’t wish to wait till it’s reaching the tip of the inhabitants earlier than we begin emphasizing the necessity for researching and defending the flat-headed cat,” says Wilson.
Citations:
Wilting, A., Wire, A., Hearn, A. J., Hesse, D., Mohamed, A., Traeholdt, C., … Hofer, H. (2010). Modelling the species distribution of flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps), an endangered South-East Asian small felid. PLOS ONE, 5(3), e9612. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009612
Dickman, A. J., Hinks, A. E., Macdonald, E. A., Burnham, D., & Macdonald, D. W. (2015). Priorities for international felid conservation. Conservation Biology, 29(3), 854-864. doi:10.1111/cobi.12494
Bohmann, Ok., Evans, A., Gilbert, M. T., Carvalho, G. R., Creer, S., Knapp, M., … De Bruyn, M. (2014). Environmental DNA for wildlife biology and biodiversity monitoring. Developments in Ecology & Evolution, 29(6), 358-367. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2014.04.003
Wadey, J., Ramli, M., Moore, J., Fletcher, C., & Campos-Arceiz, A. (2016) Flat-headed cats, Prionailurus planiceps — A literature evaluate of their detection-rate in camera-trap research and failure to re-detect them in Pasoh Forest Reserve, Malaysia. Journal of Indonesian Pure Historical past, 4(2), 16-28. Retrieved from http://jinh.fmipa.unand.ac.id/index.php/jinh/article/view/118
Danaisawadi, P., Piriyarom, S., Krasaeden, W., Pramkasem, S., Rurkkhum, S., & Yimprasert, S. (2023). Time finances and exercise patterns throughout the mating interval of flat-headed cat Prionailurus planiceps in captivity. Tropical Pure Historical past, 7, 221-228. Retrieved from https://li01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/tnh/article/view/258833
This article by Sean Mowbray was first printed by Mongabay.com on 29 Could 2024. Lead Picture: A flat-headed cat snapped at evening on the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. This small felid is taken into account one of the crucial endangered cats in Southeast Asia, however is never caught on digital camera and enormous data gaps exist about its primary ecology, inhabitants numbers, and distribution. Picture courtesy of Sebastian Kennerknecht/Panthera.
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