Sulawesi Brown Palm Civets (Macrogalidia musschenbroekii): Ringtails of One Indonesian Island

The Republic of Indonesia claims no territory on mainland Asia. It instead exists as an extensive archipelago, a multi-cultural nation, and a sovereign state. The Indonesian Naval Hydro-Oceanographic Office gives 17,508 as the total number of islands within the world’s largest archipelago. But the Indonesian republic has as cultural, economic, political, and social center just five islands:

• Kalimantan, on the world’s 3rd largest island, Borneo;
• Java, the world’s 13th largest island;
• Papua Barat, on the world’s 2nd largest island, New Guinea;
• Sulawesi, 11th largest;
• Sumatra, 6th largest.

All five islands have predominantly East Asian flora. But Sulawesi mixes Asian and Australasian fauna whereas Java, Kalimantan, and Sumatra shelter East Asian mammals and West Papua specializes in marsupials. 

Many faunal species are endemic to Sulawesi alone. For example, the “iron island” exclusively attracts as insular primates:

• Booted (Macaca ochreata) and moor (M. maura) macaques;
• Diana’s (Tarsius dentatus), Lariang (T. lariang), and pygmy (T. pumilus) tarsiers.

Just the earthquake-prone island’s karst topography in the South Province’s Maros Regency claims as freshwater crustaceans and ray-fins:

• False-spider cave-crabs (Cancrocaeca xenomorpha).
• Small-eyed gudgeons (Bostrychus microphthalmus).

Only Sulawesi’s fresh, inland waters fill the bio-geographical needs of:

• Buntingi ricefishes (Adrianichthys kruyti, A. oophorus, A. poptae, A. roseni);
• Poso bungo gobies (Weberogobius amadi);
• Rabbit snails (Tylomelania spp).

Nowhere other than Sulawesi and its South East Province’s inclusion of nearby Buton Island harbor:

• Gray’s brush-turkeys (Macrocephalon maleo);
• Midget buffaloes (Bubalus quarlesi, B. depressicornis).

Sulawesi in fact acts as the sole homeland of Sulawesi brown palm civets (Macrogalidia musschenbroekii). Sulawesi brown palm civets appear as native wildlife of:

• Central Sulawesi Province, inland from Palu and throughout the East Peninsula;
• North Sulawesi, throughout the Minahasa Peninsula;
• Southeast Sulawesi, at the tip of the Southeast Peninsula fronting the Flores Sea.

Up to elevations of 8,530.18 feet (2,600 meters), they can be found naturally in:

• Cloud primary-growth rainforests;
• Lower and upper montane primary-growth rainforests;
• Lowland primary-growth rainforests.

They may tolerate:

• Farmland and forest mosaics;
• Forest and savannah mosaics;
• Grasslands.

They never settle:

• Gorontalo Province, which shares Minhasa Peninsula with Central and North Sulawesi Provinces;
• South Sulawesi Province, with its South Peninsula;
• West Sulawesi Province. 

The formal description of Sulawesi brown palm civets comes in 1877 from Hermann Schlegel (June 10, 1804 – January 17, 1884), as:

• Altenburg-born German ornithologist;
• Vienna university student of Leopold Fitzinger (April 13, 1802 – September 20, 1884) and Johann Jakob Heckel (January 23, 1790 – March 1, 1857);
• Wiener Naturhistorische Museum and Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie zoologist.

The genus Macrogalidia derives from the ancient Greek:

• μακρός (makrós, “long”);
• Γαλινθιάς (Galanthias), who becomes a little weasel for facilitating Heracles’ birth to Alcmene and Zeus.

The species musschenbroekii memorializes Pieter van Musschenbroek (March 14, 1692 – September 19, 1761), as:

• Leiden-born Dutch scientist;
• London student of Sir Isaac Newton (December 25, 1642 – March 20, 1727);
• Universities of Duisburg, Leiden, and Utrecht professor. 

But 125+ years after the Schlegel taxonomy, Sulawesi brown palm civets are unfamiliar to wildlife-lovers worldwide. For example, scientists base their information upon 28 specimens, with half described before 1900 and half afterward. They nevertheless do know how to recognize living specimens as having:

• Alert, pale-patched ears;
• Big, dark-adapted, pale-ringed, rounded eyes;
• Brown and white fine, long, super-sensory whiskers;
• Chestnut brown upper-parts, lightened by many paler hairs;
• Long tail, with dark tip, darkened under-side, and 7 – 11 each of alternating dark and pale brown rings; Pale-lined upper lip;
• Mid-dorsal spots and stripes arranged longitudinally;
• Red-tinged chest;
• Short, soft fur;
• Tawny to white under-parts;
• 12 incisors, 4 canines, 16 premolars, and 8 molars;
• 20 curved, retractile, sharp claws. 

Per living and museum specimens, physically and sexually mature Sulawesi brown palm civets attain:

• Head-and-body lengths of 25.59 – 26.77 inches (650 – 680 millimeters) for females and 28.15 (715) for males;
• Tail lengths of 17.52 – 18.90 inches (445 – 480 millimeters) for females and 21.26 (540) for males;
• Weights of 8.49 – 13.45 pounds (3.85 – 6.1 kilograms), with females occupying the lower ranges.

Stomach contents usually include:

• Birds, especially Gray’s brush-turkeys (Macrocephalon maleo), and including eggs, feathers and feet;
• Fruits, especially cultivated bananas, palm-fruits, and papayas;
• Grasses;
• Insects;
• Small mammals, especially Sulawesi bear cuscus (Ailurops ursinus) and warty piglets (Sus celebensis).

Two pairs of teats suggest bi-annual litters of 1 – 3 offspring.

Otter (Cynogale bennettii) and Sulawesi brown palm civets are close relatives. They respectively favor only Borneo and Sulawesi. They respectively function as endangered specialists and vulnerable generalists in super-fragmented, super-reduced habitats experiencing:

• Modernizing versus traditionalist interactions;
• Urban and wildland interfaces.

The latter’s monthly needs include:

• Actual evapo-transpiration: 71.21 inches (1,808.68 millimeters);
• Forages: 1.74 – 4.38 square miles (450 – 900 hectares);
• Precipitation: 8.93 inches (226.87 millimeters);
• Temperatures: 67.48°F (19.71°C).

Their conservation needs legislative and research prioritizations. Fortunately, they already occupy:

• Dumonga Bone, Lore Lindu, and Rawa Aopa Watumohai National Parks;
• Gunung Ambang Nature, Morowali Natural, Tangkoko-Batuangas  Dua Saudara Nature, and Tanjung Peropa Wildlife Reserves;
• Mangolo Recreation Forest;
• Mount Klabat.

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

Danau Lindu in Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia: Aidenvironment, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Danau_Lindu_w_bird_2007.jpg

miniature water buffaloes
R. Lydekker, Wild Oxen, Sheep & Goats of All Lands, Living and Extinct (1898), Plate X, opp. p. 128: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/9370089

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:Sulawesi_Palm_Civet_area.png

Hermann Schlegel, Sulawesi Palm Civet describer; lithograph by Dutch lithographer and paleontological and scientific illustrator A.J. (Abraham Jacobus) Wendel (October 31, 1826-September 23, 1915)
Dr. F.A. Jentink, Notes from the Leyden Museum, Vol. VI (1884), frontispiece: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/9635522

Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek
1741 portrait by Hiëronymus van der Meij (1687-1761); Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden, Leiden Icones 147: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P_v_Musschenbroek_t-E.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

skeleton and bottoms of front and hind paws of Otter Civet (Cynogale bennettii), Sulawesi Brown Palm Civet's relative
A.B. Meyer, Säugethiere vom Celebes- und Philippinen-Archipel (1896), I, Taf. VI: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34551493

Tokalalaea Megalith, Lore Lindu National Park
Central Sulawesi province, Sulawesi, Greater Sunda Islands, Eastern Indonesia: Oliver van Straaten, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokalalaea_Megalith_2007.jpg

Mount Tangkoko (Gunung Tangkoko)
view of Gunung Tankoko from Molucca Sea (Laut Maluku): Lip Kee Yap, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tangkoko_National_Park,_North_Sulawesi,_Indonesia.jpg

Manado, capital city of North Sulawesi province
Manado on Bay of Manado, Minahasa Peninsula (Semenanjung Minahasa), Celebes Sea (Laut Sulawesi): Eustaquio Santimano, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Take-off_from_Manado,_North_Sulawesi,_Indonesia.jpg

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