The Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire, 1831) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in Rajasthan, India – a compilation of two decades

In Rajasthan, the presence of the Rusty-spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus was first reported in 1994 in Udaipur District, the southernmost district of Rajasthan. Since then, it was also recorded in four more districts scattered over an area of about 86,205km2. We compiled information about the occurrence of the Rusty-spotted Cat in Rajasthan based on direct sightings, road kills, rescued kittens, and camera trap images. Our data set shows that the Rusty-spotted Cat is also present in eight more districts of Rajasthan that form part of the Aravalli Hills and Vindhyan Hills in the semi-arid zone of eastern Rajasthan. The area encompassed by these records amounts to 71,586km2. Kittens were rescued in six instances. Adult cats were recorded in 45 instances including 41 live cats and four roadkills. Ten adult live Rusty-spotted Cats were sighted in the mornings, and 31 were recorded after dark between late evenings and early mornings. They were recorded in eight habitat types including foremost thorny and dry deciduous forests, but also ravines and agricultural fields adjacent to forests, and in forest patches in the vicinity of human settlements. The preservation of forests is of utmost importance for the long-term viability of the Rusty-spotted Cat. We strongly recommend surveys outside protected areas to determine the connectivity between Rusty-spotted Cat population units in Rajasthan.

In Rajasthan, the Rusty-spotted Cat was first reported in the outskirts of Udaipur City, where an individual was killed on a road passing through a forest patch (Tehsin 1994;Sharma 1999). Several sightings in subsequent years confirmed its presence in the vicinity of Udaipur (Bhatnagar et al. 2000;Sharma et al. 2006;Sharma 2007). Rusty-spotted Cats were also sighted in two tiger reserves of the state, namely Sariska (Sharma 1998;Mukherjee 1998Mukherjee , 2013 and Ranthambhore (Reddy 2002;Verma 2008;Khandal & Khandal 2015) in Alwar and Sawai Madhopur Districts, respectively. A road kill was reported in Bundi District (Nayak et al. 2017), and sightings in Bharatpur District (Singh et al. 2017).
Large forest tracts in India lie outside protected areas and are subject to conversion for other land uses, a development that negatively impacts the Rusty-spotted Cat population in the country (Mukherjee et al. 2016). To conserve vital forest habitat in Rajasthan, it is important to understand how well the Rusty-spotted Cat is established throughout the state; however, nothing is known to date about its presence in other districts of the state. We address this knowledge gap by providing new information about the occurrence of Rusty-spotted Cat across Rajasthan. Our collation consists of direct sightings, road kills, rescues and camera trap records obtained between August 2000 and March 2020.

STUDY AREA
Rajasthan is the largest state in India, with an area of 342,239km 2 in the north-western part of the country (Roy & Jakhar 2002). In the north-west, Rajasthan is bordered by Pakistan, in the north and north-east by the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, in the east by Madhya Pradesh and in the south by Gujarat (Roy & Jakhar 2002). The most striking geological feature of Rajasthan is the Aravalli Hills, spanning at least 2,500 million years of the Earth's history (Roy & Purohit 2015). The Aravalli Hills intersect Rajasthan from north-west to south-east over about 800km and are bounded by the Thar Desert in the west and the Vindhyan Plateau in the east (Roy & Jakhar 2002). The average elevation of the Aravalli Hills is 550-670 m, with the highest peak rising to 1,722m (Roy & Jakhar 2002). The main forest types in Rajasthan are dry deciduous forest covering 12,850km 2 , thorn forest in 2,536.5km 2 , dry savannah in 593.5km 2 and broad-leaved hill forest in 153.8km 2 (Krishna & Reddy 2012). Forests are classified into three categories, viz., reserve forest, protected forest, and un-classed forest as per provisions of Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953(Government of Rajasthan 1953. Sariska, Ranthambhore, and Mukundara Hills National Parks are managed under Project Tiger (Bhardwaj & Sharma 2013;Singh & Reddy 2016). Except Desert National Park and Tal Chhapar, all the other protected areas of the state are either confined to the Aravalli Hills or east of this hill range (Sharma 2006).
While pursuing the study, a particular focus was given to Udaipur's surrounding districts, where the Rusty-spotted Cat was first observed, namely Rajasmand, Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh, Pali, Sirohi, Chittorgarh, and Bhilwara.

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The climate in the Thar Desert of western Rajasthan is characterized by extreme temperatures and drought with cold winters and freezing temperatures (Bhandari 1990). January is the coldest month with average mean temperatures ranging from 12°C to 17°C (Sharma & Tiagi 1979). Mean monthly temperatures in April to June vary from 34-40°C in the west of the Aravalli Hills to 28-32°C in the south (Sharma & Tiagi 1979;Shetty & Singh 1987). Diurnal temperatures rise to 32°-47°C in May and June, which are the hottest months (Sharma & Tiagi 1979). The south-east Asian monsoon brings rain during the months of June to September (Prakash et al. 2015), varying from 100-400mm in the west (Bhandari 1990;Sharma 2011) to over 1,300mm in the east (Prakash et al. 2015). Mount Abu in the southwestern part of the Aravalli Hills is the only hill station of the state, and receives a maximum rainfall of 700-1,250 mm per year (Bhandari 1990;Shetty & Singh1987;Sharma 2002).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Opportunistic and sometimes planned surveys were conducted across Rajasthan from 2000 to 2020: to collect the data related to occurrence of the species, the following methods were adopted; direct sightings, rescue, road kill, and camera trap records. The first author was an officer of the Rajasthan Forest Department and worked in various districts. Whenever a Rusty-spotted Cat was encountered during patrolling and routine duties, notes were made about the date and time, location, surrounding habitat, sex of the individual, and its activity at the time of sighting. Camera trap records include those obtained by the Rajasthan Forest Department and by Tiger Watch, an organisation that has been working in Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve since 1997. Tiger Watch runs a program called Village Wildlife Volunteers (VWV) in collaboration with the Rajasthan Forest Department. VWV have been installing Cuddeback Attack camera traps in the peripheral areas of the reserve since 2015. The camera traps are mounted at 45-50 cm above ground on trees or poles along mud roads, animal trails and dry stream beds at a distance of 1-1.5 km between locations. All locations are situated in forest, grassland and ravine habitats. They are active only by night for 12 hours and are set to trigger images with a minimum delay of five seconds. VWV check them daily to download data, ensure proper functioning and replace drained batteries. The coordinates of locations are determined using a Garmin eTrex device. Until April 2020, camera traps were deployed at 200 locations in an area of 2,000km 2 amounting to 79,310 camera trap nights.
We defined three age groups, namely kittens with closed eyes (I1), kitten with eyes opened (I2), and adults (A). When possible, we measured body length from snout to vent (BL), tail length from anus to tip of the tail (TL) and weight (Wt) of rescued cats, and determined their sex as female (F) or male (M) by close observation of their external sex organs. The sex identification of directly sighted and photographed animals remained unknown (UN).

RESULTS
We report 51 records of the Rusty-spotted Cat in 30 locations across 13 districts of Rajasthan (Fig 1; Table  1). These records comprise 21 direct sightings (41.18% of all records), 20 camera trap images (39.22%), six rescues (11.76%) and four road kills (7.84%). The cats were recorded in thorny and dry deciduous forest at 17 locations (56.67% of all), and in the outskirts of human settlements at five locations (16.67%). Two locations (6.67%) were in ravines and two (6.67%) in agricultural fields adjoining forest areas. One each was in Teak forest, broad-leaved semi-evergreen hill forest, a fruit orchard and a public park in a densely populated human habitation (3.33% respectively). The area encompassed by the 30 locations of these records amounts to 71,586km 2 .
Kittens were rescued in six instances (11.8% of all records), all of them in the mornings. Adult cats were recorded in 45 instances (88.2%), including 41 live cats (80.4%) and four found killed on roads (7.8%). The live adult cats were recorded by day between 06.09h and 11.56h in 10 instances (24.4% of all live cats) and after dark between 19.00h and 05.29h in 31 instances (75.6%).

DISCUSSION
Our compilation of records shows that the Rustyspotted Cat inhabits thorny and dry deciduous forest tracts in the Aravalli and Vindhyan Hills from the districts of Jaipur in the north to Banswara in the very south. We did not learn of any sightings in Thar Desert to the west of the Aravalli Hills, although the first author used to work there. It is neither included in the faunal list of the Thar Desert (Prakash 1963(Prakash , 1964. We therefore assume that it is absent in this part of Rajasthan due to J TT the arid climate with sand dunes and sparse vegetation. However, we think it possible that it may be recorded in future in this area as the habitat is expected to change from xeric to mesic due to the construction of the Indira Gandhi Canal (Prakash 1986;Chandrakasan et al. 2010).
We did not learn of any records in the districts of Dausa, Tonk, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Baran, and Jhalawar in the east of the Aravalli Hills, despite the presence of dry deciduous forest. Rajsamand, Baran, and Jhalawar

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have protected forests, whereas forests in Dausa, Tonk, and Bhilwara are not protected. To date, no camera trapping survey was carried out in these forests. In view of our records of the Rusty-spotted Cat in thorny and dry deciduous forests in other parts of the Aravalli and Vindhyan Hills, we consider it likely that it will be recorded there as well in future surveys. Most of the adult cats were recorded after dark, confirming the foremost nocturnal activity of the Rustyspotted Cat observed in other study areas (Mukherjee 1998;Chavan et al. 1999;Kittle & Watson 2004;Kumara & Singh 2007;Patel 2006;Anwar et al. 2010Anwar et al. , 2012Vyas & Upadhyay 2014;Aditya & Ganesh 2016;Ghaskadbi et al. 2016;Lamichhane et al. 2016;Basak et al. 2018). Cats sighted at night in Sajjangarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Jhalana Leopard Safari Park and Ranthambhore National Park, however, were resting, either sitting or walking on boundary and parapet walls. On one occasion, both Rusty-spotted Cat and Leopard were observed sitting on the same parapet wall at a distance of only 50m from each other. This observation was made in the rainy season when the ground was covered with thick and tall grasses, which may hinder the cat's vision on the ground. On one occasion, the cat was observed on Ronjh trees Acacia leucophloea and other thorny tree species. Ronjh is a thorny 6-8 m high tree with sharp stipular spines up to 3.5cm long (Shetty & Singh 1987). Despite the presence of spines on stem and branches, the cat was observed comfortably perched on a branch. These observations were in concurrence with the cat's semiarboreal behaviour (Nowell & Jackson 1996;Kumara & Singh 2007;Vasava et al. 2012;Mukherjee & Koparde 2014), and preference for dense forest cover (Bora et al. 2020;Chatterjee et al. 2020).
We found nine kittens between July and November, indicating that females give birth in the warm season. Females under captive conditions also gave birth in January, April, and July to October (Dmoch 1997).
We found four Rusty-spotted Cats killed on roads in

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20 years. Increased road networks and vehicular traffic may pose a threat, as road kills were also observed in other areas (Digveerendrasingh 1995;Dubey 1999;Behera 2008;Vyas & Upadhyay 2014;Adhikari et al. 2019). Especially at night, the cat was observed to venture on roads to scavenge on roadkills, which increases the risk of getting hit by vehicles. Significant preventive measures are required to prevent the Rusty-spotted Cat from falling victim to road accidents. Patrolling staff should be trained to check incidents of roadkills and dumped cattle carcasses and remove them from roads passing through forests. Other measures like proper waste disposal system from roadside hotels and small roadside food restaurants, provisions of culverts and underpasses at intervals on highways, water hole facilities away from the roads, and speed signs for drivers, may prevent roadkills of not just Rusty-spotted Cat but also of many other species crossing roads. The Forest Department should initiate training for staff to identify the Rusty-spotted Cat correctly, so that sighting data can be compiled and reported in future. Intensive camera trap studies are needed in other districts and forests of the state to determine the connectivity between population units in Rajasthan. In view of loss and fragmentation of habitat being the most serious threat to the Rusty-spotted Cat (Mukherjee et al. 2016), it is imperative to preserve forest tracts. To date, little is known about the Rusty-spotted Cat's movement pattern, reproduction and diet in the wild. In-depth studies on these aspects of the Rusty-spotted Cat's ecology are essential to promote adequate conservation measures.