Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 April 2025 |
17(4): 26893–26897
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9261.17.4.26893-26897
#9261 | Received 04 July 2024 | Final received 09 March 2025 | Finally
accepted 14 April 2025
First photographic record of a Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis
(Kerr, 1792) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in central India
Prabhu Nath Shukla 1 ,
Bilal Habib 2 ,
Virendra Kumar Mishra 3 ,
Sumedh Lomesh Bobade 4
,
Eshaan Chaitanya Rao 5 & Kanishka 6
1,4,5 Pench Tiger Reserve, Zero Mile, Civil
Lines, Nagpur, Maharashtra 440001, India.
2,6 Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248001, India.
3 Institute of Environment and
Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
221005, India.
1 prabhunathshukla@gmail.com, 2
bh@wii.gov.in, 3 virendra78@gmail.com (corresponding author), 4
sumedh.bobade7@gmail.com, 5 eshaanrao.06@gmail.com,6 kanishkaasharma84@gmail.com
Editor: Angie Appel, Wild Cat Network, Germany.
Date of publication: 26
April 2025 (online & print)
Citation: Shukla, P.N., B. Habib, V.K. Mishra, S.L. Bobade, E.C. Rao & Kanishka (2025). First
photographic record of a Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis (Kerr, 1792) (Mammalia: Carnivora:
Felidae) in central India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 17(4): 26893–26897. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9261.17.4.26893-26897
Copyright: © Shukla et al. 2025. 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: No funding was received to conduct this research.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We express our sincere gratitude to the Maharashtra Forest Department, which provided us the opportunity to carry out this work. We are thankful to the entire field staff and officers who helped in the collection of the data in the field.
Keywords: Camera trap, conservation, landsacpe, Pench Tiger Reserve,
small wild cat, tropical dry deciduous forest, wild cat, wildlife.
The Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis
is a small wild cat with a wide geographical distribution in southern and
eastern Asia, which inhabits tropical dipterocarp, evergreen, temperate
broadleaf, and coniferous forests to shrublands and grasslands (Azlan & Sharma 2006; Thapa et al. 2013; Bashir et al.
2013; Lee et al. 2015; Petersen et al. 2019; Wu et al. 2020; Ghimirey et al. 2023). It is listed as ‘Least Concern’ in
the IUCN Red List (Ghimirey et al. 2023).
In India, it is afforded the highest protection level
under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act (2022) (Ministry of
Law and Justice 2022). It occurs in protected areas in the Himalayas and Terai (Mukherjee et al. 2010; Bashir et al. 2013; Noor et
al. 2017; Srivastava et al. 2020; Jhala et al. 2020),
the Eastern and Western Ghats (Mukherjee et al. 2010; Kumara et al. 2014; Srivathsa et al. 2015;
Aditya & Ganesh 2016; Nikhil & Nameer 2017;
Sreekumar & Nameer 2018; Jhala
et al. 2020). In
northeastern India, it has been recorded in several
protected areas (Datta et al. 2008; Goswami & Ganesh 2011; Selvan et al. 2014; Joshi et al.
2019; Mukherjee et al. 2019; Jhala et al. 2020). Its
presence has not been reported in central India (Jhala
et al. 2020), and it is absent in museum collections from this region of India
(Mukherjee et al. 2010). A study using molecular techniques and
niche modelling showed a low probability of the Leopard
Cat occurring in regions with temperatures above 38°C in the warmest month
(Mukherjee et al. 2010). However, certain central
Indian pockets have been proposed to be probable habitat of the Leopard Cat (Ghimirey et al. 2023). Considering its vital role in its
habitat, it is imperative to ascertain its presence in central India and other
parts of the country to make efforts for its conservation at the landscape
level.
We report the first photographic record of a Leopard
Cat in Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, as well as
central India.
The study was carried out in Pench
Tiger Reserve located in Nagpur District of Maharashtra (Figure 1) and
juxtaposed to the southern part of Pench Tiger
Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. It comprises Pench
National Park, Mansingh Deo Wildlife Sanctuary and Paoni & Nagalwadi Ranges (Dudipala et al. 2023). These ranges have been divided into
beats and further into compartments for administrative purposes. The area of
the Pench Tiger Reserve is over 740 km2
including a core area of 483.96 km2 and a buffer zone of 257.26 km2.
Human activities are restricted in the core area; most of the villages are
located in the buffer zone, where most of the activities related to livelihood
generation are allowed, such as collection of non-timber forest products, and
other activities like developmental works are regulated (Shukla et al. 2025).
The northern part of Pench
Tiger Reserve is hilly while the southern part is relatively plain, with an
elevation gradient of 284–591 m. It is connected with Melghat
Tiger Reserve to the east, Bor Tiger Reserve to the
west, Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve to the
southeast, Kanha Tiger Reserve to the north-east, and
Pench Tiger Reserve to the north through corridors
consisting of forest and non-forest areas (Jhala et
al. 2020).
The major forest type in Pench
Tiger Reserve is southern tropical dry deciduous forests dominated by Teak Tectona grandis
along with Terminalia tomentosa, Sterculia urens, Largerstroemia parviflora,
Anogeissus latifolia,
Pterocarpus marsupium, Bombax ceiba, Aegle marmelos, Boswellia serrata, and Chloroxylon swietenia
as associated tree species (Champion & Seth 1968). The area has dry weather
for most of the year and receives 1,000–1,200 mm annual rainfall during the
monsoon season of June to September (Shukla et al. 2025). Summer season is hot
from March to June with a maximum temperature of 45°C in May (Shukla et al.
2025). November to January is the period of winter season with average minimum
temperature of 12°C (Dudipala et al. 2023).
We used Cuddeback C1, Cuddeback Colour Professional, and Bolyguard
camera traps during the survey, which were set to taking one photograph per
trigger. Each camera trap was assigned a unique identification number, and their
memory cards were cleaned and double-checked to prevent data contamination.
We divided the survey area into 296 grid cells of 2 km2
each and deployed 592 camera traps as pairs in a radius of 500 m from the
centres of the cells at a height of 40–60 cm above ground. Camera traps were
active for 24 hours during 31 days from 3 February to 3 March 2024. We
determined the location of each camera trap using a Garmin etrex10 GPS device,
which was set to the default geodetic datum WGS 84.
A solitary Leopard Cat was recorded on 7 February 2024
at 02.05 hours at 21.568 0N, 79.144 0E (Image 1) inside a
seasonal stream, which was predominantly dry except for a few small pools of
stagnant water and some boulders along the bed. The stream had a low incline on
the sides and loose gravel soil underneath dry leaf litter. The terrain was
undulating with rocky outcrops. The vegetation was sparse near the village but
denser towards the forest. The canopy cover was about 40%, dominated by Teak.
The presence of pellets and hoof marks of herbivores was observed across the
compartment. The camera trap location was 2 km away from Narhar
village located in the Nagalwadi range of Parshioni taluka of Nagpur District.
Our
record of the Leopard Cat is the first in Pench Tiger
Reserve and in the Deccan Plateau of central India. In Pench
Tiger Reserve, it was not recorded during past camera trap surveys despite an
effort of 15,291 camera trap days in 421 locations in 2018 alone (Jhala et al. 2020). The lack of previous records of the
Leopard Cat in central India may be due to its lower population density in this
region than estimated in temperate Himalayan habitats (Bashir et al. 2013), wet
semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forests in southwestern India (Srivathsa et al. 2015), and evergreen forests in Thailand
and Cambodia (Petersen et al. 2019; Pin et al. 2022). Dry deciduous forests are
likely to represent suboptimal habitat for the Leopard Cat (Pin et al. 2022),
thus restraining detection probability.
The
location of this record is close to the possible Leopard Cat harbouring area in
central India as per Ghimirey et al. (2023). In view
of temperatures reaching 45°C in May (Shukla et al. 2025), this record refutes
the notion that 38 °C may be the upper threshold for the presence of the
Leopard Cat (Mukherjee et al. 2010). As shown by Petersen & Savini (2023), species distribution models based only on
climatic data are questionable, but modelling approaches should also include
forest cover and canopy height to improve their predictive accuracy.
Reporting the presence of
the Leopard Cat in this landscape of central India is important from the
conservation point of view. Extensive studies are required to determine its
distribution, habitat preferences and population dynamics for devising a
conservation strategy for maintaining a long-term sustainable population.
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figure & image - - click here for full PDF
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