New record on Asiatic Golden Cat Catopuma temminckii Vigors & Horsfield, 1827 (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae): photographic evidence of its westernmost distribution in Gaurishankar Conservation Area, Nepal

Abstract

The Asiatic Golden Cat Catopuma temminckii is poorly known in Nepal and was previously recorded only twice in the eastern part of the country. We conducted a camera trap survey in the Lapchi Valley (32km2) of Gaurishankar Conservation Area (GCA), a protected area in north-central Nepal, from October 2018 to April 2019. Eleven cameras were deployed to record mammalian diversity in a 2×2 km2 grid across Lapchi block of GCA. During the study period, four photos and three videos (each of 10 seconds length) of Asiatic Golden Cats were recorded at an elevation of 2,540m at a single camera trap station. This is the first photographic record of Asiatic Golden Cat in this region of Nepal extending the distribution of the species further west in the Himalaya. A more detailed study on its distribution, population size and behaviour is warranted in the near future to implement appropriate conservation measures.

A checklist of mammals of Gaurishankar Conservation Area, Nepal

“…GCA is least explored in terms of biodiversity research. Recent research in the area reported the presence of snow leopard (Panthera uncia), Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus), Asiatic golden cat (Pardofelis temminckii) (Koju et al 2020;Koju et al 2021;Pandey et al 2021). The existence of red panda (Ailurus fulgens) and Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) was also confirmed in this study.…”

“…In the study area, the vertical topography and high variation in altitudinal gradients have created a mosaic of habitats suitable for many species of global significance. A recent camera trapping study has identified the presence of many important charismatic species in the region (Koju et al 2020;Koju et al 2021;Pandey et al 2021). Therefore, systematic taxonomic research in this area is sorely needed to understand mammalian fauna in the region.…”

Camera Trap Evidence of Polymorphic Asiatic Golden Cat (Catopuma temminckii) in Trashigang Forest Division, Eastern Bhutan

“…We defined a hypothetically independent event as an interval of at least 30 minutes between consecutive photographs of the same individual Asiatic golden cat at the exact camera trap lo-cation. We computed the overall photographic capture rate index using the formula used by Koju et al (2020), i.e., Photographic Capture Rate Index (PCRI) = ((No. of photo-graphs×100)/Total number of traps per day).…”

Record of Burmese Ferret Badger (Melogale personata, I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1831) in Kathmandu, Nepal

“…The camera traps were employed at 30-40 cm height above the ground. Photo capture rate index (PCRI) was calculated following Carbone et al (2001) and Koju et al (2020). Slope and aspect and near the cramera trap location was measured using android app clinometer-bubble, GPS Garmin Etrex 30 respectively, and canopy cover was estimated by visual estimation following Dhital et al (2020).…”