Habitat and Distribution Found only on Iriomote Island, at the southernmost tip of the Ryuku island chain, which is part of the archipelago stretching from Kyushu to Taiwan known as Nansei Shoto (Figure 18). Iriomote island consists predominantly of low mountains (300-400 m) covered with sub-tropical evergreen broadleaved primary forest, including extensive belts of mangrove along waterways. The Nansei Archipelago has a high degree of endemism, and has been termed the “Galapagos of the Orient”. People came to the island only after the second World War, following spraying of DDT by the Americans to eradicate malaria (P. Leyhausen in litt. 1977), and by 1991 numbered around 1,500 (Izawa et. al. 1991). Settlement is concentrated mainly along the coast from the north-west to the south-east, with the center of the island being relatively undisturbed (Barber e t al. 1984, Anon. 1992a). However, the Iriomote cat typically inhabits the low altitude coastal areas of the island alongside the human population, rather than the protected montane area at the island’s center (Izawa et al. 1989).

© 1996 IUCN - The World Conservation Union