IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Guggisberg, C.A.W. | |
| Marbled Cat _Pardofelis marmorata_ (Martin 1836) | |
| 1975 Book Chapter | |
Characteristics, distribution and habits of the marbled cat The skull of the marbled cat is short and broad, more rounded than in most other felines, with the nasal bones very broad and flat. Adults have the eye sockets surrounded by a complete bony ring. The teeth are fairly robust. The anterior upper premolar is often wanting and very small when present at all. The first lower premolar is not very prominent either. The pupils are ovoid in outline. In 1834, Sir William Jardine described and figured this species in his famous Naturalist's Library on the basis of two skins in the Edinburgh Museum which were assumed - wrongly - to have come from Java. He regarded them as specimens of the little-known "Diard's cat" and wrote: "The great discrepancy in our species and the description by Desmoulins of the Felix diardii is the great size given of the animal, 5 feet 4 inches, and we must consider that this is some mistake." There certaintly was a mistake, for Felis diardii is one of the names given to the clouded leopard, the markings of which happen to be very nearly the same as those of the much smaller marbled cat. The specific designation "marmorala" was introduced by Martin in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, in which so many new animals have been described and named. |
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