Hose's Palm Civet
Encyclopedia
The Hose's palm civet also known as the Hose's civet (Dusun
: Tani, Kadazan
: Toni, Penan
: Perayen, Malay
: Musang Hitam Pudar), is a civet
found in Borneo. It is named after zoologist Charles Hose
and is a member of the family Viverridae. It is endemic
to the montane forests
of northern Borneo
.
What little is known of the species comes primarily from 17 museum specimens worldwide, the first of which was collected in Sarawak
by C. Hose in 1891. It was not until 1997 that the first living specimen was obtained; this was, however, released after 2 months – there remains no Hose’s civet in captivity anywhere in the world.
(rhinarium
) has a contrasting flesh colour. The two nostril
s protrude widely, diverging to open on both sides. The under surfaces of the feet are pale (flesh coloured) and the footpads brown. The feet are partly webbed
, with patches of short hair between the footpads.
The Hose’s civet has a head-body length of 472 –, a tail of 298 –, a hindfoot length of 74 – and a ear length of 36 –; it is estimated to weigh about 1.4 – and has 40 teeth.
and nocturnal by nature and is thought to be of a more ground dwelling nature than other palm civets. It is thought to make dens in holes between rocks and/or tree roots.
boulders and streams. The sole individual ever in captivity ate only meat and fish and not fruit, the preferred diet of all other civet
s in Borneo.
and Sabah
in Malaysian Borneo
, and in Brunei
; it has not been recorded from Kalimantan
(Indonesian Borneo).
There have been very few field sightings of the species, and these have been mainly from lower montane
forest and mature mixed dipterocarp
forest.
A few recent sightings exist, including a capture in Brunei (which was subsequently released) and a photo taken by a camera trap
in lowland forest of Kinabalu National Park
in Sabah. Another camera trap picture taken in Kalimantan may represent this species, but has been the subject of controversy.
The highest encounter rate of the species so far has been in the Sela’an-Linau Forest Management Unit (FMU), a logging
concession
in the Upper Baram
, Sarawak, where fourteen images of the Hose's civet were obtained between 2004 and 2005 from four different sites in the concession. The previous largest series of encounters from one locality consisted of four specimens collected between 1945 and 1949 by Tom Harrisson
in the nearby Kelabit Highlands
, suggesting that this part of Sarawak may be the prime habitat of the species.
The few records of Hose’s civet from across its range have been mainly from montane
forest sites, giving rise to the assumption that it is a montane species. However, it has been reported from an altitude of only 450m in Brunei and 600m in Batu Song, Sarawak; an individual was camera trapped in the lowland forest of Mount Kinabalu National Park, Sabah, also at an altitude of only 600m, and one of the 14 images from the Sela’an-Linau FMU was from an altitude of 730 metres (2,395 ft).
It may be that the preferred habitat of Hose's civet is highly humid
, mossy
forests, near mossy boulders and streams.
(Hemigalus derbyanus). Hose’s civet was first described as Hemigalus hosei in 1892 by Oldfield Thomas
and it was only in 1912 that he found that the difference in shape of muzzle and teeth, as well as the obvious difference in the pattern of colouration, implied the necessity of distinguishing Diplogale from Hemigalus. Like the Hose’s civet, the banded palm civet is strictly nocturnal and more ground dwelling; the distribution of Hose’s civet, however, is much more restricted and more confined to higher altitude forest.
The large snout and long facial whiskers of Hose’s civet is similar to that of the otter civet
(Cynogale bennettii). The otter civet is known to be semi-aquatic and has webbed feet; it occurs mainly in lowland rain forest
.
, though whether it is able to persist and/or disperse through forest fragmented
by slash and burn
fields and logging roads is still unknown.
within its range is known to hold a large population, although in Brunei and Sabah, individuals have been recorded in Ulu Temburong National Park and Mount Kinabalu National Park, respectively. In Sarawak, no protected area is known to hold a population of the species. It is listed on the IUCN Red List
as Vulnerable a listing which is completely inferential, based on its highly restricted range and extensive habitat loss (deforestation
) and degradation within that range due to logging
and conversion to non-forest land uses. Hunting could increasingly be a threat to the species as population numbers and trends are completely unknown. It is possible that the species could qualify for a higher threat category once more information is available on its ecology
and threats. It is thus considered urgent to promote and conduct further research on this species.
Dusun
Dusun is the collective name of a tribe or ethnic and linguistic group in the Malaysian state of Sabah of North Borneo. Due to similarities in culture and language with the Kadazan ethnic group, a new unified term called "Kadazan-Dusun" was created. Collectively, they form the largest ethnic group...
: Tani, Kadazan
Kadazan
The Kadazans are an ethnic group indigenous to the state of Sabah in Malaysia. They are found mainly on the west coast of Sabah, the surrounding locales, and various locations in the interior. Due to similarities in culture and language with the Dusun ethnic group, and also because of other...
: Toni, Penan
Penan
The Penan are a nomadic aboriginal people living in Sarawak and Brunei. They are one of the last such peoples remaining. The Penan are noted for their practice of 'molong' which means never taking more than necessary...
: Perayen, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
: Musang Hitam Pudar), is a civet
Civet
The family Viverridae is made up of around 30 species of medium-sized mammal, including all of the genets, the binturong, most of the civets, and the two African linsangs....
found in Borneo. It is named after zoologist Charles Hose
Charles Hose
Charles Hose was a British colonial administrator, zoologist and ethnologist.He was born in Hertfordshire, England, and was educated at Felsted in Essex. Admitted to Clare College, Cambridge in 1882, he almost immediately migrated to Jesus College, and later left Cambridge without taking a degree...
and is a member of the family Viverridae. It is endemic
Endemic (ecology)
Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...
to the montane forests
Borneo montane rain forests
The Borneo montane rain forests are an ecoregion, of Cloud forest, within the Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Biome, of the island of Borneo in south-east Asia .-Location and description:...
of northern Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
.
What little is known of the species comes primarily from 17 museum specimens worldwide, the first of which was collected in Sarawak
Sarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
by C. Hose in 1891. It was not until 1997 that the first living specimen was obtained; this was, however, released after 2 months – there remains no Hose’s civet in captivity anywhere in the world.
Appearance
The upperparts (from nose to tail tip, including outer surfaces of the four limbs) are dark brown to blackish brown and the underparts (from the chin to the tip of the tail and the inner surface of all four limbs) are white or slightly brownish white. The face has dark rings around the eyes and very long, white facial whiskers (sensory hairs) and the large, wet snoutSnout
The snout, or muzzle, is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw.-Terminology:The term "muzzle", used as a noun, can be ambiguous...
(rhinarium
Rhinarium
The rhinarium is the moist, naked surface around the nostrils of the nose in most mammals. In actual scientific usage it is typically called a "wet snout" or "wet nose" from its moist and shiny appearance...
) has a contrasting flesh colour. The two nostril
Nostril
A nostril is one of the two channels of the nose, from the point where they bifurcate to the external opening. In birds and mammals, they contain branched bones or cartilages called turbinates, whose function is to warm air on inhalation and remove moisture on exhalation...
s protrude widely, diverging to open on both sides. The under surfaces of the feet are pale (flesh coloured) and the footpads brown. The feet are partly webbed
Webbed toes
Webbed toes is the common name for syndactyly affecting the feet. It is characterised by the fusion of two or more digits of the feet. This is normal in many birds, such as ducks; amphibians, such as frogs; and mammals, such as kangaroos...
, with patches of short hair between the footpads.
The Hose’s civet has a head-body length of 472 –, a tail of 298 –, a hindfoot length of 74 – and a ear length of 36 –; it is estimated to weigh about 1.4 – and has 40 teeth.
Activity pattern
The Hose’s civet is both crepuscularCrepuscular
Crepuscular animals are those that are active primarily during twilight, that is during dawn and dusk. The word is derived from the Latin word crepusculum, meaning "twilight." Crepuscular is, thus, in contrast with diurnal and nocturnal behavior. Crepuscular animals may also be active on a bright...
and nocturnal by nature and is thought to be of a more ground dwelling nature than other palm civets. It is thought to make dens in holes between rocks and/or tree roots.
Diet
Little is known about the diet of Hose’s civet in the wild, though it is thought to forage on small fish, shrimps, crabs, frogs and insects among mossyMoss
Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems...
boulders and streams. The sole individual ever in captivity ate only meat and fish and not fruit, the preferred diet of all other civet
Civet
The family Viverridae is made up of around 30 species of medium-sized mammal, including all of the genets, the binturong, most of the civets, and the two African linsangs....
s in Borneo.
Distribution and habitat
Hose's civet has only been recorded from a few localities in SarawakSarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
and Sabah
Sabah
Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
in Malaysian Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, and in Brunei
Brunei
Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
; it has not been recorded from Kalimantan
Kalimantan
In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....
(Indonesian Borneo).
There have been very few field sightings of the species, and these have been mainly from lower montane
Montane
In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...
forest and mature mixed dipterocarp
Dipterocarpaceae
Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek and refers to the two-winged fruit...
forest.
A few recent sightings exist, including a capture in Brunei (which was subsequently released) and a photo taken by a camera trap
Camera trap
A camera trap is a remotely activated camera that is equipped with a motion sensor or an infrared sensor, or uses a light beam as a trigger. Camera trapping is a method for capturing wild animals on film when researchers are not present, and has been used in ecological research for decades...
in lowland forest of Kinabalu National Park
Kinabalu National Park
Kinabalu National Park or Taman Negara Kinabalu in Malay, established as one of the first national parks of Malaysia in 1964, is Malaysia's first World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO in December 2000 for its "outstanding universal values" and the role as one of the most important biological...
in Sabah. Another camera trap picture taken in Kalimantan may represent this species, but has been the subject of controversy.
The highest encounter rate of the species so far has been in the Sela’an-Linau Forest Management Unit (FMU), a logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
concession
Concession (contract)
A concession is a business operated under a contract or license associated with a degree of exclusivity in business within a certain geographical area. For example, sports arenas or public parks may have concession stands. Many department stores contain numerous concessions operated by other...
in the Upper Baram
Ulu Baram
Ulu Baram is a remote area of Sarawak in Malaysia. It is an encased alluvial plain, created in part by the Baram River.The forest is certified for logging. Most of Ulu Baram belongs to the traditional area of the Orang Ulu , a collective name that includes the Penan people , Kayan, Kenyah, Saban,...
, Sarawak, where fourteen images of the Hose's civet were obtained between 2004 and 2005 from four different sites in the concession. The previous largest series of encounters from one locality consisted of four specimens collected between 1945 and 1949 by Tom Harrisson
Tom Harrisson
Major Tom Harnett Harrisson DSO OBE was a British polymath. In the course of his life he was an ornithologist, explorer, journalist, broadcaster, soldier, guerrilla, ethnologist, museum curator, archaeologist, documentarian, film-maker, conservationist, and writer...
in the nearby Kelabit Highlands
Kelabit Highlands
The Kelabit Highlands are a mountain range located in the northernmost part of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. The highest mountains in this range are Mount Murud at 2,423 m , Bukit Batu Buli at 2,082 m , and Bukit Batu Lawi at 2,046 m .In the Kelabit Highlands, there are 14...
, suggesting that this part of Sarawak may be the prime habitat of the species.
The few records of Hose’s civet from across its range have been mainly from montane
Montane
In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...
forest sites, giving rise to the assumption that it is a montane species. However, it has been reported from an altitude of only 450m in Brunei and 600m in Batu Song, Sarawak; an individual was camera trapped in the lowland forest of Mount Kinabalu National Park, Sabah, also at an altitude of only 600m, and one of the 14 images from the Sela’an-Linau FMU was from an altitude of 730 metres (2,395 ft).
It may be that the preferred habitat of Hose's civet is highly humid
Humidity
Humidity is a term for the amount of water vapor in the air, and can refer to any one of several measurements of humidity. Formally, humid air is not "moist air" but a mixture of water vapor and other constituents of air, and humidity is defined in terms of the water content of this mixture,...
, mossy
Moss
Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems...
forests, near mossy boulders and streams.
Similar species
The Hose's civet is similar to the banded palm civetBanded Palm Civet
The banded palm civet is a civet found in the tall forests of Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Though it lives in the forests, it spends much of its time on the ground....
(Hemigalus derbyanus). Hose’s civet was first described as Hemigalus hosei in 1892 by Oldfield Thomas
Oldfield Thomas
Oldfield Thomas FRS was a British zoologist.Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and sub-species for the first time. He was appointed to the Museum Secretary's office in 1876, transferring to the Zoological Department in 1878...
and it was only in 1912 that he found that the difference in shape of muzzle and teeth, as well as the obvious difference in the pattern of colouration, implied the necessity of distinguishing Diplogale from Hemigalus. Like the Hose’s civet, the banded palm civet is strictly nocturnal and more ground dwelling; the distribution of Hose’s civet, however, is much more restricted and more confined to higher altitude forest.
The large snout and long facial whiskers of Hose’s civet is similar to that of the otter civet
Otter Civet
The Otter Civet, Cynogale bennettii, is a semi-aquatic civet found in forests, primarily lowland, near rivers and swampy areas of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo. An additional population, only known from single specimen, occurs in northern Vietnam...
(Cynogale bennettii). The otter civet is known to be semi-aquatic and has webbed feet; it occurs mainly in lowland rain forest
Borneo lowland rain forest
Borneo lowland rain forest is an ecoregion, within the Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Biome, of the large island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. It supports approximately 10,000 plant species, 380 bird species and several mammal species...
.
Adaptability to altered habitat
Hose’s civet may be intolerant to disturbance caused by loggingLogging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
, though whether it is able to persist and/or disperse through forest fragmented
Habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation as the name implies, describes the emergence of discontinuities in an organism's preferred environment , causing population fragmentation...
by slash and burn
Slash and burn
Slash-and-burn is an agricultural technique which involves cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields. It is subsistence agriculture that typically uses little technology or other tools. It is typically part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock...
fields and logging roads is still unknown.
Conservation status
Currently, the basic factors likely to determine the long-term future of the Hose’s civet, such as population densities, degree of dependency on old-growth forest, ranging and dispersal patterns and others, are entirely unknown, making specific conservation measures impossible. No protected areaProtected area
Protected areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognised natural, ecological and/or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international...
within its range is known to hold a large population, although in Brunei and Sabah, individuals have been recorded in Ulu Temburong National Park and Mount Kinabalu National Park, respectively. In Sarawak, no protected area is known to hold a population of the species. It is listed on the IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...
as Vulnerable a listing which is completely inferential, based on its highly restricted range and extensive habitat loss (deforestation
Deforestation in Borneo
Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered with dense rainforests, but along with its tropical lowland and highland forests, there has been extensive deforestation in the past sixty years. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of...
) and degradation within that range due to logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
and conversion to non-forest land uses. Hunting could increasingly be a threat to the species as population numbers and trends are completely unknown. It is possible that the species could qualify for a higher threat category once more information is available on its ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and threats. It is thus considered urgent to promote and conduct further research on this species.