Rusty-spotted cats are found in a variety of habitats and may tolerate human-dominated landscapes. Photo: Authors provided.
The photograph on the screen loads slowly, coming into focus bit by bit. Whiskers, tiny paws, ears of a cat… we wonder if it is yet another house cat our camera-traps – motion-triggered infrared cameras – have captured. Our excitement fades – only to quickly come back alive.
No, this one’s different. Much, much different.
The photograph is of the elusive rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus), the smallest member of the felid family. Individuals weigh as little as a kilogram. Their small size, elusive nature and nocturnal habits make them one of the least studied felids in the world, leaving a lot of pressing questions open.
We got our first camera-trap photograph of the rusty-spotted cat sometime in 2013. Since then, camera-traps have offered us a rare opportunity to spot them in multiple places across our field sites in the wild landscapes of Karnataka.
The rusty-spotted cat is found in a wide range of habitats, including deciduous forests, scrubland, grassland, among rocky outcrops, forest plantations and in agricultural fields. The species is found only in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In 2017, researchers identified three subspecies: one from India and Nepal (P. rubiginosus rubiginosus), and two from Sri Lanka (P. rubiginosus phillipsi and P. rubiginosus koladivius).
Named for its reddish-grey coloured, spotted coat, this tiny wild cat with its big eyes and distinctly long, bushy tail manages to effortlessly elicit choruses of “awww” and squeals of delight from a lot of people.
However, the animal’s appearance can’t do much to protect its population from threats like habitat loss, fragmentation and hybridisation with domestic cats. Habitat loss in particular is driven by the widespread conversion of forested land for agriculture and the expansion of human settlements and industrial areas. As rusty-spotted cats prey on poultry, they also become vulnerable to being persecuted as ‘pests’.
The cats have also become more vulnerable to the illegal wildlife trade: to be sold as tiny pets that will never outgrow the ‘cute’ size or for their pelts.
With fewer than 10,000 mature individuals estimated to be surviving in the wild, the rusty-spotted cat is listed as being ‘near threatened’ on the IUCN Red List. In India, it is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, the highest level of legal protection.
Spying through the lens
Between 2013 and 2020, our camera-traps have gathered quite a bit of useful information about the distribution of rusty-spotted cats in Karnataka. Our study was originally about capturing images of leopards (Panthera pardus), but we serendipitously picked up 1,195 photographs of rusty-spotted cats as well.
The species has appeared in images from 19 out of 24 study sites, including tiger reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and other multiple-use forest areas. Apart from protected areas, we have also documented the presence of these cats in small, isolated patches like the Talakadu state forest and the Maidenahalli conservation reserve.
We also obtained photographic records of the cat from areas dominated by humans, suggesting they are able to tolerate some degree of human disturbance.
Sadly, many of these areas are being threatened by large-scale developmental activities.
Small carnivores like small wild cats, mongooses, civets, weasels, raccoons, etc., have the potential to be indicator species: if they are doing well, it could mean the ecosystem to which they belong is doing well, too. This is because these animals tend to be more selective about the resources they need than larger carnivores.
Axiomatically, their absence in a given area could be an early hint that something could be wrong – specifically, indicating the depletion of some primary resource these small carnivores need.
The small cats among them are also pest control agents as well as serve as prey for larger species in the same ecosystem.
So thanks to camera-trap studies, anecdotes and opportunistic sightings, we now know rusty-spotty cats is not as rare as they seemed to be for a long time. This said, their distribution records are still quite patchy in India and Nepal, with no published abundance estimates in these countries.
What we know of the estimated range is limited in fact to Karnataka, thanks to the serendipitous camera-trap images, and this is also imperfect. There needs to be a more robust, coordinated and well-planned study to fill in these blanks.
Phalguni Ranjan is a marine biologist working as a science and conservation communicator and Amrita Menon is a research affiliate on the leopard conservation project in Karnataka – both with the Western Ghats Programme, Nature Conservation Foundation.