The Sundaland clouded leopard, a newly identified and little understood species of big cat in Borneo, has been filmed for the first time.
The leopard, a healthy-looking animal 1m long and weighing about 40kg was caught on video at night at the Dermakot Forest Reserve in Malaysian Borneo’s Sabah state.
“What surprised us was that while clouded leopards are very elusive cats, this one was not scared at all,” said Azlan Mohamed, a field scientist at University Sabah Malaysia.
PHOTO: AFP
“Despite our powerful spot lights and the roar of our vehicle’s engine, it walked around our vehicle calmly,” he said.
“It is rare to see the big cat in the wild. These cats are usually shy of humans, it was by chance we caught it on video,” he said.
The Sundaland clouded leopard was classified as a new species through genetic studies several years ago and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature designated it as endangered in 2008.
Azlan said the Sundaland species is the biggest predator on Borneo, a resource-rich island split between Malaysia and Indonesia where wildlife habitats are under pressure from logging and plantations.
Because of their nocturnal habits, secretive behavior and small numbers, little is known about the beast, including how many of them are living in Borneo.
However, Azlan said the researchers found the remains of a samba deer that had been killed by one of the big cats.
Azlan is a member of a research team focusing on carnivores in Sabah, led by Andreas Wilting of the Leibnez Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research based in Berlin, Germany.
This big cat can be found in lowland rainforest on Borneo and in small numbers in areas of logged forest.
However, environmentalist say that the clouded leopard faces the threat of poaching while rapid deforestation and the creation of rubber and oil-palm plantations in Borneo is destroying its natural habitat. Azlan said Dermakot Forest Reserve, a 500km² area that had been commercially logged but where replanting is now under way, is also home to four other threatened wild cats.
Sixty cameras traps placed in Dermakot also captured images of the marbled cat, flat-headed cat, leopard cat and Borneo bay cat, all smaller in size than the Sundaland clouded leopard.
Azlan said the research team was “surprised” to find all five cat species in Dermakot and four of them in the neighboring Tangkulap Forest Reserve.
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