Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2026 | 18(2): 28441–28443

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

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.10209.18.2.28441-28443

#10209 | Received 13 October 2025 | Final received 25 January 2026 | Finally accepted 13 February 2026

Small Wild Cats Special Series

First photographic record of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae)

in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India

Tarun Singh ¹ , Harshvardhan Singh Rathore ² , N. Abhin ³ , Subhalaxmi Muduli ⁴ ,

Yash Deshpande ⁵ , Vivek Sarkar ⁶ , Diganta Sovan Chand ⁷ , Samrat Gowda ⁸ ,

Prakash C. Gogineni ⁹ , Manoj V. Nair ¹⁰ , Bivash Pandav ¹¹ & Samrat Mondol ¹²

^{1–6, 11,12} Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248001, India.

^7–10 Odisha Forest Department, Aranyabhawan Plot No 2/12 Chandrasekharpur Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751023, India.

¹ tarunsingh2103@gmail.com, ² harshrathore691@gmail.com, ³ abhintothewild@gmail.com, ⁴ subhalaxmimuduli959@gmail.com,

⁵ yashdeshpande6497@gmail.com, ⁶ viveksarkar87@gmail.com, ⁷ djdschand@gmail.com, ⁸ samrat120@gmail.com,

⁹ chandgp2007@gmail.com, ¹⁰ nairmanojvasudevan@gmail.com, ¹¹ bivash.pandav@wii.gov.in,

¹² samrat@wii.gov.in (corresponding author)

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

Citation: Singh, T., H.S. Rathore, N. Abhin, S. Muduli, Y. Deshpande, V. Sarkar, D.S. Chand, S. Gowda, P.C. Gogineni, M.V. Nair, B. Pandav & S. Mondol (2026). First photographic record of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 18(2): 28441–28443. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.10209.18.2.28441-28443

Copyright: © Singh 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: The Odisha Forest Department provided funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements: We express our gratitude to the Odisha Forest Department for granting the necessary permission (Letter no. 3964/4WL-475/2024) and for providing logistic support during the fieldwork. We also thank the director, dean, and research coordinator of the Wildlife Institute of India for offering us facilities and infrastructure. Special thanks are due to Khushwant Singh, Subrat Kumar Behera, and all the frontline staff of Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary for their invaluable assistance in the field.

We report a camera trap photograph of a Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha (Image 1). A single individual was recorded on 18 May 2025 at 0140 h by one of 73 camera traps deployed from April to May 2025, for a total of 2,206 camera trap days. This camera trap was installed beside a forest road near a seasonal stream at an elevation of 215 m. It was operational for 24 hours per day and active for 32 days. It also recorded a Jungle Cat Felis chaus, Small Indian Civet Viverricula indica, Indian Grey Mongoose Herpestes edwardsii, and a feral Dog Canis familiaris. The vegetation around this location is mainly composed of Sal Shorea robusta and Clerodendrum infortunatum dominating the ground cover. The Euclidean distance to the nearest village boundary is 3.2 km. There was no human disturbance at this location, except for patrolling vehicles of the forest department.

Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary covers an area of 272.75 km² and is characterized by rugged, hilly terrain (Sahu et al. 2014; Figure 1). Tropical moist deciduous, dry deciduous and semi-evergreen forests are the predominant forest types in this region of Odisha (Champion & Seth 1968).

Our record is the first in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary. A previous camera trapping survey from January to August 2013 failed to detect the cat despite 916 camera trap days across 65 locations in Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary (Debata & Swain 2018). The next closest records of the Rusty-spotted Cat in northern Odisha were obtained in Similipal Tiger Reserve (Palei & Debata 2017; Mishra et al. 2019) and in Hadagarh Wildlife Sanctuary (Palei et al. 2022; Mishra & Mohan 2023). In Odisha, the Rusty-spotted Cat has been recorded by camera traps in both protected and non-protected areas, including the mixed deciduous forests of Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary (Palei et al. 2023a) and the forest divisions of Bargarh, Bolangir, Bonai, and Sundargarh (Palei et al. 2019, 2023b; Kumar et al. 2021; Patra et al. 2025). Rescued individuals have been reported in Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary and the Ghumusur and Phulbani Forest Divisions (Palei & Debata 2017; Palei et al. 2019). It was also recorded in the Atei Reserve Forest, which forms part of an important wildlife corridor linking Similipal and Satkosia Tiger Reserves (Hanumant et al. 2025).

Given the widespread occurrence of the Rusty-spotted Cat in Odisha, dedicated camera trap surveys should be undertaken to assess its population status. Information generated from such studies would also enhance our understanding of its ecological requirements and aid in developing a conservation action plan.

For figure & image - - click here for full PDF

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