New civet species in Borneo?

[SEAN EDWARDS]

      I had kept rather quiet on this one, being a cryptogamic botanist and assuming that mammalogists knew much better -- or had more evidence not yet released.  But a quick flip through my cheap tourists' colour guide to: A selection of the animals of Sri Lanka, by John and Judy Banks (1986), shows plate 3.2: Paradoxurus zeylonensis, which looks remarkably similar. It is endemic to Sri Lanka but as Ken says an extension of range is more likely than a dramatic new carnivore.  Even the less similar Bornean Paguma larvata: "...with the typical shape of a civet, but unlike all others, the body is plain reddish brown, without stripes... face is marked with mask...", must be first discounted since the face has apparently not been seen. (An introduction to the mammals of Sabah, by John Harrison, 1964/73, p. 185, cheap paperback pocketbook).

  Occam's razor surely requires that the obvious be eliminated before the astonishing is proposed. I am very happy to be slapped down as to why the above suggestions are wrong, but the new species of cat-fox hype rather reminds me of the sasquat footage (1976), not to mention Peter Scott and the Loch Ness Monster "Nessiteras rhombopteryx" episode (1972), which did science no favours.

  If it is a spurious anti-logging ploy, then it also seriously damages deeper (WWF etc.) arguments on this vital problem.





Sean Edwards, Vine Cottage, Thursley, Surrey GU8 6QF, UK
sean.r.edwards at btinternet.com
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