Malay Civets (Viverra tangalunga): Ringtails of Insular and Peninsular Southeast Asia

Malay civets also answer to the common, non-scientific, popular, trivial, vulgar names of:

• Malayan civet;
• Oriental civet.

But not one of the names can be considered optimal in relaying complete information. Nomenclature ideally communicates the location and the look of an object or organism. The designation indeed does involve a night-foraging, opportunistic-feeding carnivore whose name, civet, broadcasts the mammal’s musky body odor and scent glands. But the broad-ranging adjective Oriental historically identifies:

• Afro-Asia’s Arab Republic of Egypt;
• All Asia.

The narrow-focused adjectives Malay and Malayan semantically indicate only insular and peninsular Malaysia. And yet the Malay civet is:

• Absent from Egypt;
• Native to more than Malaysia;
• Naturalized to parts of Indonesia;
• Non-native to much of mainland Asia.

Southeast Asian islands and peninsulas accommodate the life cycles and natural histories of Malay civets. Malay civets indeed belong among the wildlife flourishing on:

• Brunei;
• Indonesia (Amboina, Bangka, Bawal, Java, Kalimantan, Karimata, Rhio-Lingga Archipelago, Sumatra, Telok Pai);
• Malaysia (Banggi, Langkawi, Malay Peninsula, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak);
• Philippines (Bohol, Busuanga, Camiguin, Catanduanes, Culion, Leyte, Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros, Palwan, Panay, Samar, Sibuyan, Siguijor);
• Singapore.

Mammalogists sometimes consider within the Malay civet’s native bio-geography:

• Cambodia;
• China;
• Thailand.

But mammalian surveys do not mention Malay civets among the above-mentioned countries’ fauna. Coastal stretches notwithstanding and excepting the Thai Peninsula, mainland Cambodia, China, and Thailand go against the grain of the Malay civet’s overwhelmingly insular and peninsular predilections for Asian distributional ranges.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the distributional ranges of Malay civets continue to expand. Malay civets indeed cooperate with import, introduction, and naturalization to islands outside Malaysia. They now count among the Indonesian wildlife on:

• Buton;
• Maluku;
• Sulawesi.

Malay civets in fact endure environmental stress more effectively than Sulawesi palm civets (Macrogalidia musschenbroekii) endemic (geographically exclusive) to the same-named island. They find themselves in demand for their abundant, high-quality civetone. Civetone generates revenue for homeopathologists (traditional medicine practitioners) and perfumists. It is produced:

• Naturally by civet scent glands to convey information, mark territories, and stink-bomb predators;
• Synthetically from oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis) chemicals.

Survival-smarts motivate Malay civet adaptability to relocation to Indonesia’s assembly-line musk farms.

And yet forests historically accede to Malay civet biology and sustainability. Malay civets accept:

• Brush-, grass-, and scrub-lands;
• Disturbed, logged, and secondary-growth forests;
• Plantation and village outskirts.

But lowland, montane, and mossy primary-growth jungles and rainforests assume bio-geographical priority for:

• Ambushing or stalking small amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles;
• Climbing trees to elude predatory mammals, raptors, and reptiles;
• Denning among surface-level brush and logs or in home-made burrows and vegetation-layered nests;
• Establishing home and territorial range distinctions between same genders and overlaps with opposite genders;
• Foraging for eggs, fish, fruits, insects, and roots;
• Foraying from dusk to dawn;
• Raising bi-annual litters of 1 – 4 furry offspring whose eyes open in 10 days and nursing requires 30 days.

Jungle, sylvan, and wooded habitats emerge as most conducive to Malay civet survival. Niching among lush vegetation is unexpected given the Malay civet’s physique. Super-spotted and striped Malay civets look high-profile. But their color-patterned physique operates as super-smart camouflage. It picks up the play of dark and light over bark within dense-shrouded, tall-canopied stands. For example, the body projects:

• Black, 5-clawed, 5-digited paws;
• Bristling, long-haired dorsal mane from shoulders to tail tip;
• Dark-spotted, orderly rows;
• Short grey, tawny fur;
• Striped neck and throat of 3 black and 2 white bands.

The head reveals:

• Alert, wide-spaced ears;
• Big, dark-adapted eyes;
• Light, pointed muzzle;
• White lower-eye patches.

The tail sequences about 15 each of alternating dark and pale bands.

Not only appearance and bio-geography but also comportment contribute to the Malay civet’s present survival and projected sustainability. Scientists describe the Malay civet’s conservation status as of least concern among viverrids. Their conclusions ensue logically from considering interactive impacts of:

• Terrestrial agility;
• Unobtrusive physique;
• Vast bio-geography.

Behavior functions as the consolidating factor. Malay civets perfect:

• Adaptability;
• Conflict-avoidance;
• Elusiveness;
• Reclusiveness.

But they rely upon powerful offenses and self-defenses if need be:

• Neck-snapping;
• 12 incisors, 4 canines, 16 premolars, and 8 molars;
• Stink-bombs;
• 20 curved, sharp claws.

Physical and sexual maturity indeed streamlines:

• Head-and-body lengths of 23.03 – 37.02 inches (58.5 – 95 centimeters);
• Tail lengths of 11.81 – 18.98 inches (30 – 48.2 centimeters);
• Weights of 11.02 – 24.25 pounds (5 – 11 kilograms).

All civets demand in-depth scrutiny from environmentalists. For all civets, the deadline for conducting fieldwork and interpreting data draws ever closer because of existential threats from:

• Clear-cutting loggers;
• Habitat-fragmenting agro-industrialists;
• Niche-reconfiguring miners;
• Population-reducing hunters.

Malay civets emerge as super-relevant research subjects because of their survival-smarts against:

• Environment-reconfiguring agro-industrialists;
• Exotic pet-traders;
• Flesh-, fragrance-, and fur-hunters;
• Projectile- and snare-trappers.

They find their habitats impacted but their bio-geography holding steady 180+ years after their formal presentation in 1832 to wildlife-loving amateurs and scientists outside Asia by Walsall-born British physician and zoologist John Edward Gray (February 12, 1800 – March 7, 1875), as:

• British Museum scientist;
• Hardwicke collection taxonomist.

As obligate pest-controllers and seed-dispersers, they merit:

• Governmental protection;
• Scientific research;
• Wildlife-loving support.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Malay Civets
Grand Naemundung Mini Zoo, Tandurusa, Bitung, North Sulawesi Province, northeastern Sulawesi: Sakurai Midori, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paradoxurus_Tandurusa_North_Sulawesi.JPG

Distribution data from IUCN Red List: Chermundy/ IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, species assessors and the authors of the spatial data, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Malayan_Civet_area.png

Singapore (Malay: Pulau Ujong, "island at the end") lies off southern tip of Malay Peninsula.: Someformofhuman, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marina_Bay_Sands_in_the_evening_-_20101120.jpg

Sulawesi Brown Palm Civet (Macrogalidia musschenbroekii), under synonym of Paradoxurus musschenbroekii
A.B. Meyer, Säugethiere vom Celebes- und Philippinen-Archipel (1896), I, Taf. V: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34551491

Malayan Civet Cat (Viverra tangalunga): Dellex, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Malaiische_Zibetkatze.jpg

Malay Civet (Viverra tangalunga)
Sabah, East Malaysia, northern Borno: Kalyan Varma, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Malay_civet.jpg

1855 albumen print portrait of John Edward Gray; photograph attributed to Maull & Polyblank: Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Edward_Gray._Photograph._Wellcome_V0027572.jpg

Langkawi Sky Bridge
Langkawi Island (Pulau Langkawi) is in Langkawi the Jewel of Kedah (Malay: Langkawi Permata Kedah) Archipelago: Dylan Walters (The Dilly Lama), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Langkawi_sky_bridge.jpg

Malay Civet (Viverra tangalunga)
illustration by William Stephen Coleman (1829-March 22, 1904)
J.G. Wood, The Illustrated Natural History, vol. I Mammalia (1859), p. 232: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15491425

Penang Island
Tanjung Bungah, northern Penang Island, on Strait of Malacca; (center left) Tikus Island marks Penang Strait's northern entrance.: Goh PS, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Goh PS, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/27757645@N08/3659235004

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