Using camera traps, British biologists have captured photographs of the world’s least known cat, the bay cat (Pardofelis badia).
The Bay Cat, Pardofelis badia. Image credit: Oliver Wearn.
The mysterious bay cat,
also known as the Bornean cat, is a wild cat endemic to the Indonesian
island of Borneo. Adults grow as long as 50-60 cm with a 30 – 40 cm long
tail, and can weigh over 3.5 kg.Until now, this species had been recorded on camera traps just a handful of times in Borneo and was only photographed in the wild for the first time in 2003.
But more images of this animal have been captured than ever before, together with evidence of four other wild cat species – the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps) and marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata).
“We discovered that randomly placed cameras have a big influence on the species recorded,” explained Dr Oliver Wearn from both Zoological Society of London and Imperial College London, who is a lead author of the paper published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
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Borneo bay cat photographed in heavily logged region
Extremely rare sighting raises hopes that larger mammals are more able to survive in logged areas than previously thought
The Borneo bay cat, as captured by the Safe tropical forest conservation project. Photograph: Oliver Wearn/Safe project
The Bornean bay cat (Pardofelis badia) has been recorded on camera traps on just a handful of occasions to date and was only photographed in the wild for the first time in southern Sarawak in 2003. The cat, extremely secretive and similar in size to a large domestic cat with a long tail and either a reddish or grey coat, had been classified as extinct until new images taken in Malaysian Borneo in 2009 and 2010 gave fresh hope for its survival.
Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Imperial College London have captured more a dozen images of this animal following a study in Kalabakan forest reserve, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, together with evidence of four other wild cat species in a heavily logged area of forest where they were not expected to thrive.
Dr Robert Ewers of the department of life sciences at Imperial College London, who leads the Safe tropical forest conservation project in Borneo, said the discovery of the cats was evidence that large species can survive in commercially logged forests: "We were completely surprised to see so many bay cats at these sites in Borneo where natural forests have been so heavily logged for the timber trade. Conservationists used to assume that very few wild animals could live in logged forest, but we now know this land can be home for many endangered species."
The area is only one of four forest areas in all of Borneo – the third largest island in the world and shared between Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia – that has so far been reported to contain all five species, including the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps) and marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata).
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