Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2024 | 16(12): 26322–26324

 

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

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9423.16.12.26322-26324

#9423 | Received 17 September 2024 | Final received 30 November 2024 | Finally accepted 12 December 2024

 

 

First photographic documentation of avian egg predation by Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus (Pallas, 1777) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Viverridae)

 

Aritra Bhattacharya 1, B.N. Achyutha 2, Nandini Iyer 3, Somaiah Sundarapandian 4 & Kuppusamy Sivakumar 5

 

1–5 AVANI – PU Nature Club, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University,

Chinna Kalapet, Kalapet, Puducherry 605014, India.

1 aritrabhattacharya52@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 bnachyutha@gmail.com, 3 nandini.iyerr@gmail.com,

4 smspandian65@gmail.com, 5 ksivakumar@pondiuni.ac.in

 

 

Editor: Angie Appel, Wild Cat Network, Germany.              Date of publication: 26 December 2024 (online & print)

 

Citation: Bhattacharya, A., B.N. Achyutha, N. Iyer, S. Sundarapandian & K. Sivakumar (2024). First photographic documentation of avian egg predation by Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus (Pallas, 1777) (Mammalia: Carnivora: Viverridae). Journal of Threatened Taxa 16(12): 26322–26324. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9423.16.12.26322-26324

  

Copyright: © Bhattacharya et al. 2024. 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: Funding for the study was provided by Dr. K. Sivakumar, Professor, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences,

                 Pondicherry University.

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge the vice chancellor, Pondicherry University, dean, students welfare, School of Life Sciences and faculties, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Pondicherry University who have supported in various capacities. The authors would also like to thank Dr. J.A. Johnson, scientist-F, Wildlife Institute of India, for providing the equipments. Finally, the authors would like to thank all the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

 

 

An avifaunal survey was conducted in August 2024 as part of a biodiversity monitoring program inside Pondicherry University campus. This campus is located at the Coromandel coast of southern India and covers an area of 3.15 km2 (Parthasarathy et al. 2010). On 1 August 2024 at 17.20 h, we found a nest with two eggs in the hollow of a fallen dead tree about 1 m off the ground next to a drainage pond located at 12.024536°N, 79.848332°E (Image 1). Nesting materials included dead twigs and leaves, leaf litter, Acacia seed pods and snake skin shed.

We installed a Cuddeback Blue Series camera trap model 1279 equipped with an IR flash on 2 August 2024 around 18.00 h to monitor the nest. The camera trap was set to time-lapse mode to take an image every five minutes, five burst images and a video of 30 seconds duration whenever the motion sensor was triggered.

When retrieving the camera trap on 4 August 2024, we found the nest destroyed without any sign of the eggs nearby. The camera trap images showed that the nest belonged to an Indian Robin Copsychus fulicatus. The camera trap recorded a Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus predating the nest on 3 August 2024 at 23.23 h. When it found the nest, it climbed onto the tree (Image 2), took out the eggs and destroyed the nest in the process. Then it climbed down the tree log and consumed the eggs (Image 3) including egg shells within 2–3 minutes. The Indian Robin was recorded close by the destroyed nest on 4 August 2024 (Image 4).

Our records present the first photographic evidence in India of Indian Robin egg consumption by a Common Palm Civet. To date, documented predation events of the Common Palm Civet on bird nests include two reports from Thailand; in Khao Yai National Park, it preyed on nestlings in one of 87 recorded predation events (Pierce & Pobprasert 2013). In Phuluang Non-hunting Area, it also preyed on nestlings in three of 179 total predation events (Khamcha et al. 2018). In India, it was documented preying on Indian Pitta Pitta brachyura nestlings in Gujarat (Solanki et al. 2018) and with a Red-billed Blue Magpie Urocissa erythroryncha kill in Valmiki Tiger Reserve, Bihar (Maurya et al. 2017). Interview respondents in Malaysia claimed that the Common Palm Civet frequently attacks poultry chicks and consumes poultry eggs (Hasan & Csányi 2023).

The Common Palm Civet’s diet has been described as predominantly frugivorous including but not limited to fruits and seeds of Gnetum scadens, Sacred Fig Ficus religiosa, Papaya Carica papaya, Common Jack Artocarpus heterophyllus, Wild Jack A. hirsutus, Fishtail Palm Caryota urens, Sugar-apple Annona squamosa, and Wild Himalayan Pear Pyrus pashia (Su & Sale 2007; Jothish 2011; Khan et al. 2019; Akrim et al. 2023). Vertebrate remains identified in scat samples indicate that it occasionally also consumes rodents, Indian Hare Lepus nigricollis, and invertebrates like snails and insects (Khan et al. 2019; Akrim et al. 2023). In Similipal Tiger Reserve, it was observed feeding on termite alates (Rathore et al. 2024).

Our camera trap images provide further insights into the diet of the Common Palm Civet and exemplify the benefit of using camera traps in avifaunal surveys.

 

 

For images - - click here for full PDF

 

 

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