The Sundarban
Novel photos from Thailand’s DNP and Panthera disclose the existence and rediscovery of thought to be some of the realm’s most Endangered and least acknowledged wild cats, the flat-headed cat, in Thailand’s Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary. flat-headed cat, tiny wild cat, camera entice, southeast Asia, Thailand.
DNP/Panthera Thailand
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Camera traps in Thailand maintain captured adorable passersby with necessary implication for the nation’s conservation efforts. Whereas these furry creatures would possibly perhaps inspect adore your moderate residence cat, they’re definitely wild flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps). These extremely uncommon wild felines weigh lower than half of a median pet cat, and they’ve been detected in Thailand for the first time since 1995.
The happy news turned into once confirmed by a survey from Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, and Panthera Thailand, a world wild cat conservation organization, according to an announcement emailed to Neatly-liked Science.
Flat-headed cat caught on camera
“Even species thought to be misplaced can even be rebuilt if we invest in protecting the habitats they rely on,” said Wai Ming Wong, Panthera Small Cat Conservation Science Director. “Flat-headed cats’ persistence in Thailand suggests that these ecosystems unruffled maintain distinguished biodiversity however also underscores how urgently we must preserve and restore them before they vanish completely.”
Flat-headed cats are named for their particular flat forehead and prolonged skull. They are Southeast Asia’s smallest wild cat, and maintain brief our bodies, slim legs, webbed toes, and stubby tails. They’re also hard to seem. Moreover their tiny inhabitants numbers, they’re tiny, nocturnal, and prefer exhausting-to-obtain entry to environments—tropical rainforests, swampy and peat-swamp forests, marshes, lakes, streams, and riverine forests.
Flat-headed cats are the smallest wild cat in Southeast Asia. Describe: DNP/Panthera Thailand
Researchers state them to be shut household of leopard cats and fishing cats, and estimate a whole inhabitants dimension of two,500 adults. Flat-headed cats are thought to be some of the crucial threatened wild cats—the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies them as Endangered, and “perchance extinct” within Thailand.
On the opposite hand, distant camera entice photos confirmed the wild cat’s reappearance.The traps picked up 13 detections in 2024 and 16 in southern Thailand’s Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary in 2025, within the context of the species’ biggest survey. Notably, a mother and her cub had been also spotted, verifying the species’ active duplicate in the gap. It’s a definitely crucial find, since flat-headed cat moms generally maintain lawful one kitten at a time.
A uncommon image of a Flat-headed Cat (Prionailurus planiceps) at night, Kinabatangan River, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. Describe: Sebastian Kennerknecht/Panthera.
The flat-headed cat is in the intervening time threatened by human-pushed habitat loss from land conversion, fishing, agricultural encroachment, hunting, waterway air pollution, and domestic animals transmitting ailments. Competition for residence extra decreases its fluctuate, limiting the wild cat to mostly a ways-flung, untouched environments whose protection is thus significant.
“With this unusual finding, which we thought to submit to the IUCN Pink Checklist Committee, we hope the species’ plight can even be updated to something numerous than ‘Per chance Extinct,’” Rattapan Pattanarangsan, Conservation Program Supervisor for Panthera Thailand, tells Neatly-liked Science, while adding that the Committee would possibly perhaps need extra data they don’t possess yet. “Generating this degree of evidence will doubtless require several years of extra look before the species’ plight can even be completely reassessed.”
The announcement comes in time for National Wildlife Safety Day on December 26. The flat-headed cat detection will lay the groundwork for DNP and Panthera Thailand’s conservation planning regarding the species.
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