Spotted Linsangs (Prionodon pardicolor): Ringtails of Continental Southeast Asia

Cloven lips and moist noses announce the importance of scent in information-gathering, processing and sharing aspects of faunal lives. They are among the hallmarks of Asia’s spotted linsangs. The dark nose completes an elongated face whose:

• Ears are alertly prominent;
• Eyes are big, dark, and round-pupiled;
• Muzzle is pointed;
• Neck looks l-o-n-g;
• Whiskers project super-sensory fineness.

The light-colored lips form a pale mouth whose lower and upper jaws respectively configure a super-sharp dentition (arrangement, kind, and number of teeth) of:

• 6 incisors, 2 canines, 8 premolars, and 2 molars;
• 6 incisors, 2 canines, 8 premolars, and 4 molars.

The elongated, dusky-brown to lightly-buffed head has 2 dark stripes each running:

• Along the neck;
• From the ears backward.

A spotted linsang’s elegant, long, slender body belies the power behind:

• 5 retractile-clawed digits per paw;
• Fleet, hair-covered paw soles with hairless, slip-resistant digital-area pads;
• Longer, muscled hind-limbs and shorter, strong fore-limbs.

It claims as corporeal ground-colors ranges from dusky-brown to lightly-buffed. Three or four longitudinal rows of dark spots decorate the upper body. The spots decrease in size as upper-sides merge with under-sides. They grace each fore-leg all the way down to the paw and each hind-leg all the way down to the hock. They remain absent from the spotted linsang’s cylindrical, long, non-prehensile (“non-grasping”) tail. The balance- and blanket-serving tail instead showcases alternating series of 8 – 9 each of broadly dark and narrowly white rings.

The alternating dark and light coloring accentuates the spotted linsang’s:

• Attractive, dense, short, soft fur so velvety in appearance and texture;
• Diminutive physique;
• Sinewy sleekness.

Female and male spotted linsangs attain physical and sexual maturity with:

• Chest girths: 5.31 – 5.91 inches (13.5 – 15 centimeters);
• Ear lengths: 1.18 – 1.38 inches (3 – 3.5 centimeters);
• Head-and-body lengths: 14.17 – 16.93 inches (33 – 43 centimeters);
• Head-to-occiput (back part of the head or skull) measurements: 2.99 inches (7.6 centimeters);
• Hind-limb: 2.36 – 2.68 inches (6 – 6.8 centimeters);
• Sole-to-shoulder heights: 5.12 – 5.51 inches (13 – 14 centimeters);
• Tail lengths: 11.81 – 14.76 inches (30 – 37.5 centimeters);
• Weights: 1.32 – 2.65 pounds (0.6 – 1.2 kilograms).

The lower ranges describe adult females whereas the upper ranges pertain to male adults.  

Despite a blanket-like tail and a warm-furred body, all spotted linsangs avoid sheltering in such accessible but exposed, open-air, unconfined, and weather-sensitive homes as tree branches and forks. They instead choose to build carbon- and nitrogen-rich, comfortable, roomy, spherical nests of leaves and sticks either in burrows at the bases of palm trees or within tree hollows. A nest functions as one in never-ending series of nomadic homes which are:

• Constructed quickly, inhabited briefly, and re-occupied by squirrels;
• Located within the spotted linsang’s home ranges.

It is meant to accommodate several bodies, possibly 1 – 2 parents and 2 annually-born offspring. Estrus lasts 11 days, and the breeding months of February and August particularly inspire flurries of nest-building.

Adult females deliver newborns who endure temporary blindness but who already have their fur. They probably determine the content and course of offspring-raising since newborns require maternal milk until weaning. They undoubtedly emphasize foraging and foraying skills since adults are carnivores (“meat-eaters”) even though African linsangs are omnivores (“everything-eaters”). Post-weaning diets expand to include such solid food as:

• Bird eggs;
• Frogs;
• Insects;
• Reptiles;
• Small mammals.

The mammalian components in post-weaning, solid-food diets necessitate ambushing skills to:

• Climb, jump, and leap in pursuit;
• Kill with a powerful, quick, razor-sharp bite to the nape of the neck.

Successful predation results from:

• Super-quiet digitigrade (“on the digits,” “tiptoe”) gait;
• Super-rapid belly-crawling before the lethal pounce;
• Super-sharp hearing, smell, and vision.

Spotted linsangs claim survivalist appearances and sustainable behaviors from Nepal eastward to:

• Bhutan;
• India (Assam, Sikkim, West Bengal);
• Myanmar;
• Thailand;
• Vietnam.

Their homeland also draws in:

• Cambodia;
• China (Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan);
• Laos.

In all cases, the spotted linsang’s bio-geography expresses wide-ranging altitudinal applicability, from 492.13 to 6,561.68 or 13,123.36 feet (150 to 2,000 or 4,000 meters). It falls well outside level lowland terrains where continental Southeast Asia’s politico- and socio-economic development proceeds apace. It flaunts lower shrub layer residency in:

• Bamboo, degraded secondary-growth, and mixed lowland riverine forests;
• Dense, tall grasslands;
• Limestone forests;
• Pine plantations and scrublands at 4,593.18 feet (1,400 meters);
• Primary broadleaf hill and mountain forests;
• Sal (Shorea robusta) forests.

The spotted linsang’s current binomial (“two-name”) designation continues the genus established in 1822 by Thomas Horsfield (May 12, 1773 – July 24, 1859), as:

• Bethlehem-born Pennsylvanian doctor researching poison ivy;
• Collector and surgeon in Java and Sumatra, 1790 – 1819;
• London’s East India Company Museum keeper and curator, 1819-.

The species pardicolor divides into the:

• Nominate P.p. pardicolor in 1841/1842 per Cheshire-born British civil servant and Himalayan zoologist Brian Houghton Hodgson (February 1, 1801? – May 23, 1894);
• The Vietnam-based subspecies P.p. presina in 1925 per Millbrook-born Natural History Museum mammalogist Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (February 21, 1858 – June 16, 1929).

Despite protected areas and notwithstanding agro-industrialism, globally-warmed climate change, and over-hunting, both subspecies remain mysterious to science and wildlife-lovers.

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

Ashima rock; Stone Forest, Shilin county, Yunnan province, China: LHOON, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashima_rock_2.jpg; LHOON, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/lhoon/193288228/

Prionodon pardicolor; taxidermy exhibit, Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan, China: Daderot, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prionodon_pardicolor_-_Kunming_Natural_History_Museum_of_Zoology_-_DSC02486.JPG

Chusan palm (Trachycarpus fortunei), also known as windmill palm or Chinese windmill palm: Fanghong, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TrachycarpusFortunei.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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_Linsang_area.png

Jayanti in Buxa Tiger Reserve in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, India: J.M. Garg, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sal_(Shorea_robusta)-_new_leaves_with_flower_buds_at_Jayanti,_Duars_W_Picture_120.jpg

oil on canvas by John Ernest Breun (1862-1921): Kristofer M. Helgen, Roberto Portela Miguez, James Kohen, Lauren Helgen/ZooKeys, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Michael_Rogers_Oldfield_Thomas_-_ZooKeys-255-103-g003-bottom_right.jpeg; via Pensoft Publishers / ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg.php?filename=oo_25946.jpg

National Portrait Gallery, London: NPG 1707: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brian_Houghton_Hodgson_by_Louisa_Starr-Canziani.jpg

Red Panda amongst the gingko trees: Marshmallowbunnywabbit, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Panda_in_a_Gingko_tree.jpg

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