Endangered
Owston's palm civet
Chrotogale owstoni
Owston's palm civet is a viverrid native to Vietnam, Laos and a very small portion of southern China, in three counties located in the Yunnan province: Hekou, Luchun, and Jinping, and has never been found west of the Mekong River.
Appearance
The Owston's palm civet has a tawny buff-grey body with highly contrasted black markings on its back and tail, and four bands on its back.
It has large rounded ears and black eyes. Is a mid-sized palm civet at 57 cm (22 in) plus a tail of 43 cm (17 in), weighing around 1.8–2.7 kg (4–6 lb).
Range and habitat
Owston's palm civet lives in lowland evergreen forests where dry seasons are not too harsh. Based on camera trapping studies, it is likely that its range is limited to only certain forests within these regions, the moist tropical evergreen forests, subtropical forests, and limestone forests. Owston's palm civet is a viverrid native to Vietnam, Laos and a very small portion of southern China, in three counties located in the Yunnan province: Hekou, Luchun, and Jinping, and has never been found west of the Mekong River.
Conservationists developed a 10-year plan in order to help preserve the Owston's palm civet.
Habitat labels include forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
It is a solitary species, except during mating season. It is nocturnal, being active only during complete darkness in the wild, but being active from sundown to dawn in captivity.
It is mainly terrestrial, spending most of their time foraging on the forest floor, but on occasion, they may climb trees and shrubbery in order to sleep. This marking occurs most often during breeding season, but the exact reason for marking is unknown.
In crisis
It is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List because of an ongoing population decline, estimated to be more than 50% over the last three generations, inferred from over-exploitation, habitat destruction and degradation. The Owston's palm civet is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, because the population is thought to have declined due to over-exploitation and habitat fragmentation. The largest threat is hunting, specifically non-specific mammal hunting.
Owston's palm civet is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Owston's palm civet, Wikidata item Q301014. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
