Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2026 | 18(2): 28444–28446

 

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) 

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.10132.18.2.28444-28446

#10132 | Received 04 September 2025 | Final received 25 December 2025 | Finally accepted 09 January 2026

 

 

Small Wild Cats Special Series

First photographic evidence of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in Kapilash Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India

 

Alok Kumar Naik 1 , Sumit Kumar Kar 2 , Shyama Bharati 3 , Ashit Chakraborty 4  & Ashis Kumar Das 5

 

1,2,3,4 Dhenkanal Forest Division, Dhenkanal, Odisha 759001, India.

5 IGNOU Regional Study Centre, Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751013, India.

1 alokkumarnayak702@gmail.com, 2 dfo.dhenkanal@gmail.com, 3 drshyama.bharati@gmail.com, 4 vetyashit@gmail.com, 5 ashis.ridley@gmail.com (corresponding author)

 

 

Editor: Angie Appel, Wild Cat Network, Germany.          Date of publication: 26 February 2026 (online & print)

 

Citation: Naik, A.K., S.K. Kar, S. Bharati, A. Chakraborty & A.K. Das (2026). First photographic evidence of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in Kapilash Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 18(2): 28444–28446. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.10132.18.2.28444-28446

  

Copyright: © Naik et al. 2026. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

 

Funding: None.

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: We are thankful to the principal chief conservator of forest (Wildlife) and chief wildlife warden, Odishaa and the divisional forest officer, Dhenkanal Forest Division, Dhenkanal for their support in carrying out the study. We are also very thankful to Sri Tarun Kumar Mohanty, forest range officer of the Kapilash Range, Sri Pratap Dehury of the protection squad and Sri Ramakanta Parida, forest range staff for their extended help during the fieldwork.

 

 

 

During a routine wildlife patrolling survey on 30 April 2025, we sighted a single Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus at 21.57 h at the southwestern edge of Kapilash Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha. The individual rested on a branch of a Forest Ebony Diospyros sylvatica tree (Image 1) at a height of about 2 m above ground. The habitat around this location consists of dry deciduous forest next to a small seasonal stream. The closest village is about 100 m away from this location.

Our record of the Rusty-spotted Cat represents the first in Kapilash Wildlife Sanctuary and therefore merits further surveys in the vicinity. This protected area is located in the undulating hills of the Dhenkanal Forest Division in Odisha (Figure 1) at an elevation of 76–643 m. This division harbours tropical moist, dry deciduous to semi-evergreen forest composed of Sal Shorea robusta, Bael Aegle marmelos, Coromandel Ebony Diospyros melanoxylon, Burma Ironwood Xylia xylocarpa, Indian Butter Tree Madhuca longifolia and several Dillenia, Ficus and Terminalia species (Champion & Seth 1968; Palei et al. 2017). The average rainfall is 1,500–1,700 mm from June to September (Palei et al. 2019). The cold season from early November to late March exhibits an average temperature of 10–30 oC, which rises to 41 oC in the summer (Alok Kumar Naik personal observation).

Elsewhere in Odisha, the Rusty-spotted Cat has been recorded during camera trapping surveys in similar habitats and climatic conditions, including Similipal Tiger Reserve, several wildlife sanctuaries and forest divisions (Mishra et al. 2019; Palei & Debata 2019; Palei et al. 2019, 2022; Hanumant et al. 2025; Patra et al. 2025). The next closest locality record in Hadagarh Wildlife Sanctuary (Palei et al. 2022) is about 85 km to the northeast but segregated by a largely human-dominated agricultural landscape. Given the widely scattered records of the Rusty-spotted Cat in Odisha, we recommend detailed studies to determine the connectivity between population units. It is also necessary to assess human-induced disturbances, forest loss, forest fire and other threats to the Rusty-spotted Cat in Odisha.

 

For figure & image - - click here for full PDF

 

References

 

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