#prionailurus

Tiny wild cat spotted in Thailand for first time in 30 years

The flat-headed felines are the smallest wild cats in Southeast Asia.

Camera traps in Thailand have captured adorable passersby with significant implication for the country’s conservation efforts. While these furry creatures might look like your average house cat, they’re actually wild flat-headed cats (Prionailurus planiceps). These extremely rare wild felines weigh less than half an average pet cat, and they’ve been detected in Thailand for the first time since 1995. The happy news was confirmed by a survey from Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, and Panthera Thailand, a global wild cat conservation organization, according to a statement emailed to Popular Science...

Leopard cat lineage

Genus: Prionailurus

Depth: 10 (9 wins away from championship)

Two pleasantly weird-looking cats, both living around water in Southeast Asia and preying mostly on fish. (My favourite sentence of flat-headed cat's wikipedia page: "They have been observed to wash objects, raccoon-style.") The fishing cat shows the standard Prionailurus spots, while the flat-headed cat is the only non-spotted member of the genus. (It's still agouti, not solid colored - in domestic cat terms, this pattern would be called ticked tabby.)

Fishing cat

Flat-headed cat

An Asian Leopard Cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) in Borneo, Indonesia